Emerald City Lies
by Beta Nova
Summary: Glinda Upland was the six o'clock sweetheart of EBC1 News: radiant, talented, smart. Lucky. But her real lucky chance turned out to be a recalcitrant reporter - a reporter who refused to play by the rules, and who set out to prove the truth wasn't a game. A story of power, corruption and lies. Headlines. Deadlines. GELPHIE. Modern AU.
1. Six O' Clock Chance

**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, except my admiration and respect for the work of Gregory Maguire and L. Frank Baum.**

**A/N: The time is somewhere between 1978 and 1981. Shh, _Dallas_ is about to come on.**

* * *

><p>Every evening, the good citizens of Oz could turn on their televisions and watch Glinda Upland bring them the six o'clock news. She did it with such sparkle that even the bleakest headlines seemed like rainbows.<p>

But it hadn't always been that way. At the age of twenty-five, Glinda had made the jump from the local Frottica station to the national broadcasting corporation feeling sure that this was it – her big break! She soon realised that her new job as a lowly Occasional Correspondent gave her less screen time and was vastly less interesting than her old job on the crime beat at Frottica Regional News.

"Why don't you come home?" her mother would say, over the phone.

"Because I'm happy here. It just takes a while to get established, that's all."

"But once you're established, then what? What will you have to show for it?"

"Why, a career, of course."

"Oh, these careers. They're nothing but trouble. You can't have a career _and_ a husband, you know. No man wants his wife competing with him in the workplace."

In the safety of her apartment, Glinda rolled her eyes.

"Things have changed, Momsie. Didn't you hear? These days a girl doesn't have to choose. We can have it all."

"Is that some nonsense you read in Ozmopolitan?"

"It's not from Ozmopolitan," said Glinda. "It's the zeitgeist."

"We're just worried about you, darling. Living alone, working all hours. Wasting your looks and charm. Are you sure you're all right?."

"I'm fine, I promise. Give my love to Popsie. I'll call you next week."

She put the phone down, and sighed. It wasn't as if she was doing much in the way of the zeitgeist herself. Most of her stories were about things like kittens rescued from wells, or grand envelope openings. There was a special trade name for these kinds of stories: _fluff._ Glinda hated fluff. Of course, it didn't help that she had turned out to be so good at it.

At first, she had tried to suggest ideas for more serious Occasional stories, but this always seemed to backfire. She would make an appointment to see Chuffrey, the Head of News, and present an outline for something in-depth and hard-hitting.

"That's an excellent idea, Glinda," Chuffrey would say. "Quite excellent. That's just the kind of thinking we need – real out of the box stuff."

As well as being Head of News, Chuffrey also doubled as the ten o'clock anchor. He cultivated a distinguished air: silver hair, gold cufflinks, fine cigars. He was on his third marriage. The present Lady Chuffrey was twenty-nine and had recently retired from a career in surface acrobatics (otherwise known in the newsroom as table dancing). Glinda had met her once. She wore wraparound sunglasses and shoes that cost more than Glinda earned in a year. As Head of News, Chuffrey was regarded as generally fair and easygoing by his staff. As a journalist, he was well-respected but had lost his edge years ago, having settled into the role of a calm, kindly figure who appeared on TV every night to tell everyone everything was perfectly fine.

"I'm so glad you think so," said Glinda excitedly. "I went ahead and did some work on the different angles we could pursue – "

Chuffrey seemed not to be listening, lost in his own administrative thoughts.

"I'm not sure this fits under the Occasional remit, however," he said. "How about I take this to the Politics desk and see what they can do with it?"

"But I thought perhaps I could – "

It was no good. Chuffrey was already shuffling through the paperwork on his desk, a sign that their five-minute meeting was over.

"Thank you, Glinda," he said, giving her a genuine smile. "Excellent work. Would you mind closing the door on your way out?"

_This is a disaster_, she thought. _I'll languish in fluff forever_.

* * *

><p>EBC1 had two daily news bulletins: six in the evening, and ten o' clock at night. The news at six was read by the veteran reporter Don Cutter. He had gunmetal grey hair, a voice like gravel, and a scar on his grizzled brow. Aside from the times when they had to work directly together, he had exchanged no more than two or three words with Glinda in all the time she had been at EBC1. He was known for his volcanic temper, and occasionally he and Chuffrey could be heard shouting heatedly at each other behind the closed door of Chuffrey's office.<p>

One evening she was in the studio, waiting to go on the six o'clock news and talk about the unveiling of the new Guard uniforms at the Palace. They were about to go on air when Cutter lost his temper, and suddenly there it was: Glinda's lucky break.

"This isn't news!" Cutter roared, tossing the pages of his script into the air. "We should be telling people something _real,_ not this trash!"

The senior producer, Amanda Morrible, and the junior producer (whose name nobody bothered to remember), ran down from the production suite to try and calm him down. Morrible was usually able to deal with Cutter's rages. She always wore brightly-patterned, vaguely avant-garde clothes – misshapen and billowing. Her clothes made her look almost jolly, but there was something cold about her. Glinda half admired her, reflecting that it couldn't have been easy to make it so far in the boys' club of television news. On the other hand, she had seen what happened to anyone petulant or inept enough to get on the wrong side of Amanda Morrible. It wasn't pretty.

But Cutter didn't care about any of that. He ignored the attempts to placate him, and pointed wildly to his forehead.

"Do you know how I got this scar? Covering the Glikkus Mining Strike, that's how! My first big story, thirty years ago. Do you know how hard it was to get footage from the picket lines? We had riot police beating us up. That was _censorship._ But we didn't care, because we were doing our jobs!"

"Come on, now," said the senior producer, soothingly. "Nobody here is censoring you."

"Not in so many words, Amanda, but Oz, have you looked at the stuff we've been broadcasting lately? What's our lead headline tonight?"

Cutter was waiting for someone to answer him. There was a moment of fraught silence. Then the junior producer said, in a nervous voice:

"Nessarose Thropp?"

"Exactly! A spoiled heiress, famous for being famous. That's all the news means to people these days! Well, it means more to _me."_

"You just need a moment," Amanda said. "It's all right. Everybody understands."

"No," he said, suddenly sounding weary. "I don't need a moment. I don't need anything from you people any more."

Then he walked out, like a boxer leaving the ring. The studio doors swung shut behind him.

"Three minutes to air!" cried the junior producer. "What are we going to do?"

"Get Chuffrey. He'll have to do it."

"Chuffrey's not here. He's at that press briefing, remember?"

"Who else is around?"

"Nobody else can be ready in time!"

"Oz damn it," Morrible swore. Then something struck her, and she clutched Glinda's arm. "Glinda."

"What?" said Glinda, startled at the strength of the woman's grab.

"You can do it."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Chuffrey's away, and there's no-one else. You're ready to go on, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Glinda. "But – "

At this point, a pert voice had piped up from the vicinity of the weather board.

"I could do it."

"We need you to stick to the weather, Pfannee. We don't want to surprise the viewers any more than we have to."

"But won't it be a surprise when they see Glinda instead of Don?"

"Absolutely not. They see Glinda all the time as a correspondent."

"No they don't. She's hardly ever on."

"She's on often enough," Amanda said, ice in her voice. "It's a natural transition."

"Two minutes to air!" squealed the junior producer.

"Here," said Amanda, shoving the scattered pages of script at Glinda as she pushed her towards the anchor desk.

"But I don't know the script!"

"Nobody really needs the script. It's all on the autocue. You've used the autocue before - just say the words you see. And try not to look like you're reading."

Glinda sat down behind the desk. Like everything on set, it was a lot flimsier than it appeared. But that didn't matter, she knew. It was the sheer _fact_ of the anchor desk that was important: the aura of authority it conferred. When she first started working at EBC1, she had spent hours observing skilled broadcasters like Chuffrey and Cutter. It seemed that if you spoke in calm, measured tones from behind an imperturbable desk, people would be inclined to believe almost anything you told them.

"One minute," said the junior producer, who seemed to be calming down.

Hands fluttered around Glinda, fastening a tiny microphone to her blazer and giving her an earpiece. Pfannee called out from the weather board again, with a distinct note of resentment.

"She's a bit shiny."

"Make-up!" shouted Amanda.

In another second Shenshen from make-up was dusting pressed powder over her face. Glinda sneezed once, twice. When she looked up, everyone had melted back into the shadows behind the camera line, and Amanda and the junior producer were nowhere to be seen.

"Thirty seconds."

Heart hammering in her chest, she straightened the sheets of paper in front of her and tried to breathe. In her earpiece she heard the ridiculous, clashing fanfare that served as the intro music. She had time for one last thought to flash through her mind – how lucky that she had worn the charcoal skirt suit! After all, it was her smartest and most serious work outfit – before the fanfare was fading away and Amanda's voice came over the earpiece, close as a whisper.

"_Ready Glinda? Counting you down. On three, two, one…GO_."

For a moment Glinda felt sure her throat had closed up. She couldn't speak. She had been on television before, of course, but not like this. It was the knowledge of all those people, watching her. Waiting for her to tell them everything they needed to know. Waiting to believe her.

_"Glinda,"_ hissed the voice in her ear. "_We're on, for Oz's sake!_"

Her eye caught the flickering lines of text on the autocue. That steadied her. She smiled, to buy herself a few more seconds. In ordinary situations Glinda's smile was very pretty. Her teeth were white and perfect, and she had a dimple in her left cheek that she secretly counted as one of her most adorable features. But the medium of television altered Glinda's smile. _Alchemized _it. On television, it was a thing of radiance.

"Lurline," said the junior producer back in the safety of the production suite. "Look at that. It's like sunshine."

"Shh," said Amanda.

And then Glinda spoke. Melodiously, surely.

"Good evening, citizens of Oz. This is EBC1, bringing you the six o'clock news. I'm Glinda Upland. The headlines tonight: interest rates, up or down? We bring you the latest obfuscation from the Bank of Oz. And as building work stalls again on the Yellow Brick Road, the Minister for Infrastructure faces tough questions over spiralling costs. But first: our top story. She was the girl who had everything. In line for the Eminency of Munchkinland and heiress to a fortune, in recent years Nessarose Thropp has become known more for her hard partying ways than her high name. Tonight, she awaits bail after a dramatic confrontation with a paparazzi photographer outside a luxury Emerald City hotel. We ask: could the girl who has everything lose it all? Let's go live now to our Legal Correspondent, outside the High Court..."

It wasn't until she handed over to Pfannee for the weather that she realised the bulletin was nearly over. They had been on air for nearly forty-five minutes. Once she got over her initial anxiety, Glinda found that it was really ridiculously easy. Almost effortless, in fact. It was as if no time had passed at all. Meanwhile, Pfannee was flipping her hair and talking in her sugar-plum weather voice as she pointed to a picture of a rain cloud to the right of the map.

"We can look forward to a clear day tomorrow, but looking ahead to the weekend we see this band of rain moving in from the Nonestic Sea. Most of that should dissipate over the desert, but we might still see some brief showers – probably heaviest in the Vinkus, with sunny spells breaking through the cloud further in the East and in the city. And now," she said sweetly through gritted teeth, "back to Glinda."

"_Glinda, wrap it up_," the voice in her earpiece warned.

"Thank you, Pfannee," Glinda smiled, turning back to face the camera. The autocue screen was blank - each newscaster had their own unique way of closing the news, their own dear adieu, so the sign-off wasn't scripted. What could she say? _Say anything, _she told herself. _Anything special you can think of_. "I've been Glinda Upland, and that was the six o'clock news. Chuffrey Duke will be back with your night-time news at ten o' clock. Until then, from all of us here at EBC1, we wish you your own sweet time."

Then the lights were dimming around her, the fanfare was playing in her ear, the off-air buzzer sounded, and it was over.

"Thank Lurline," she said. The adrenaline was ebbing away, leaving Glinda feeling jumbled-up and tired: relieved, and oddly victorious, but also bereft. The moment of her lucky chance was past - but had she done enough to seize it? She stood up and started taking off her earpiece and microphone, only to be interrupted by Pfannee.

"What was that about?"

"What do you mean?" Glinda asked.

"What you said at the end. When you wished them their own sweet time."

"I don't know," she said. "Amanda was telling me to sign off and the words just…came into my head. Why?"

Glinda and Pfannee had been hired at EBC1 more or less at the same time, and they had rapidly established a paper-thin friendship. Pfannee thought that Glinda gave herself airs. Why, she had actually started out on _regional television_ – so provincial! Glinda, meanwhile, thought Pfannee was an airhead. They maintained a veneer of cordiality, interspersed with veiled insults and subtle undermining. So it was that Glinda, expecting a barb, was taken aback at Pfannee's next words.

"I just thought it was a nice touch, that's all."

"You did?"

Pfannee nodded, grudgingly. "You were really good."

* * *

><p>In the production suite, the junior producer looked over at his boss.<p>

"I thought she did pretty well," he said, tentatively.

"Did pretty well?" the senior producer exploded. "_Did pretty well?!_ That was the best anchor work I've seen in years. I thought she was singing us a lullaby. I don't even remember half of what she said. She's a natural. It was _perfect."_


	2. Ideal Combination

Eight months later, in the cooling autumn, Glinda was on her way to work. As always, she had picked up the morning edition of the _Emerald Herald_ on her dash for the 7.31 train.

That morning, she saw that the _Herald_ had dedicated most of its front page to the gravities of the ongoing recession. Unemployment and prices were up. Wages and the stock market were down. About a third of the page, below the fold, was taken up by a story on the student protests that had been rumbling on and off for months. A Munchkin student had thrown scarlet paint at the Minister for Futures during an official visit to the University at Shiz, the previous day. It had happened in time to make the ten o'clock news the night before, so she already knew the basics, but it was always instructive to look at how the same story appeared on television and in print.

The _Herald_'s photographer had certainly done a good job of capturing the scene. In a single frame, Glinda could see the colourful paint spattered thickly across the Minister's suit; the Minister pressing a hand to his chest, as if he had been shot; and the twist of the young man's mouth in a mix of disdain and delight as he was dragged down and handcuffed in a scuffle of Guards. The article itself was particularly incisive. The author had actually managed to interview some of the students instead of just recycling official soundbites. Glinda checked the byline. _Elphaba Thropp_. What an odd name. Glinda wondered if she was any relation to the heiress.

"Excuse me, Miss?"

She looked up from her newspaper to see a smartly-dressed woman of about her mother's age, trying to catch her attention from the next row of seats.

"Can I help you?" she asked, politely.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but you look so familiar – I've been staring at you for ten minutes, trying to place you. Then it came to me – you're the girl from the six o'clock news on EBC1! Miss Upland, isn't it?"

"Why, yes," said Glinda, with one of her best smiles. "Glinda Upland. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Oh, my. Wait till I tell everyone I ran into you – and _on the train!_ Just like a regular person!"

"Well," Glinda said modestly, "I _am_ a regular person. Newsreaders are people too!" Then she winked.

The woman clapped her hands delightedly. "Aren't you a _doll? _Oh, just wait until I tell Huff. Huff's my husband – he's in insurance." The train was slowing down; the woman cast a quick glance out of the window. "What a shame. This is my stop. But seeing you has made my day!"

"You're too kind," said Glinda.

"Not at all! What is it that you say at the end every evening?"

Glinda obliged, brightly. "Wishing you your own sweet time."

"Your own sweet time! Isn't that charming?" the woman said to nobody in particular, as she gathered her handbag and wound a silk scarf around her neck. "Oh, Huff will just _keel over_. Goodbye, Miss Upland!"

Glinda guessed the woman was heading for a light day of shopping in the city boutiques. Burn some plastic, perhaps, then lunch at the Brilliantine with friends. The kind of activities Glinda's own mother occupied her time with back in Frottica. Glinda made a mental note to call home later and tell them all about her moment of recognition.

Only a moment – but that kind of thing was starting to happen more often. Strangers approached her on the street, in shops, at restaurants. _We watch EBC1 every day. I love your work. You're doing a great job!_ It had given her quite a shock the first few times. If people had ever recognized her from her Occasional appearances, they had certainly never bothered to come up and tell her. She was starting to get used to it, though, and as she settled back into her seat on the train she felt a warm glow of accomplishment. People liked her – a lot. They felt that they _knew_ Glinda Upland, and that Glinda Upland knew them. When she spoke the words of the news in that honeydew voice, with that beautiful smile, they felt that she cared. And if she was a hit with the viewers, then EBC1 management _adored _her. Ever since she had been promoted to anchor, the ratings had been skyrocketing. Professionally speaking, Glinda had well and truly arrived. Personally, she had purchased a glittering dishwasher and upgraded her off-the-rack wardrobe. She dated handsome lawyers in tailored suits, and drank chilled white wine with ice.

And if – just sometimes, on the edge of her vision, in the depth of her dreams, between the raindrops on the windowpane at night – she felt a sense of something missing, a murmur that said _Glinda, this is good, but it's not quite IT_…

…even if she did, it didn't matter. All she had to do was wait until she was on air, and the feeling would pass. Everything was going well. The world held out all its promise to Glinda, like a diamond ring in a velveteen box. She wasn't going to turn it down.

* * *

><p>At the office, she just had time to take off her coat and throw her handbag onto her desk before the morning meeting. This was held in the conference room across from Chuffrey's office, and it was when the news team went through the key stories and assignments that would shape the rest of the day. Chuffrey had already started speaking as Glinda slipped into the room and took one of the last remaining seats around the large oval table. She wished she'd had time to get a cup of coffee. After missing her alarm earlier, she'd been lucky to make the train. Firing up the percolator had been out of the question.<p>

Chuffrey, jacketless at the head of the table with his shirt sleeves rolled up, was talking about the paint throwing. "There's going to be fallout," he said. "Outrage. Questions. We need to keep this near the top of the agenda today. How do we want to play it?"

"I think there's a strong law-and-order angle here," said Amanda Morrible from her seat near the door. "Far be it from me to intervene in editorial decisions, but it seems obvious."

"Excellent, Amanda. Quite excellent." He made air quotes to indicate a potential headline: "The young bourgeoisie: out of control."

Glinda raised her hand, thinking of the article in the _Herald_.

"Yes, Glinda."

"What about other angles?"

"Other angles?"

"I mean, Amanda's right," she said hastily. The senior producer still made her nervous, despite the fact that Morrible had been so instrumental in Glinda's promotion. "Law-and-order is crucial. But what about the student? Isn't there an individual side to this? Who is he? What was he trying to achieve? What's going to happen to him now?"

"Individual interest…" considered Chuffrey. "The personal angle. That's good, Glinda. Very good. All right. Let's go with a dual approach." He turned to Amanda. "Remind me – how did we refer to this last night?"

Amanda quoted: "'The incident, which took place at Shiz…'"

"That's no good," he said.

"What about 'the Shiz Incident'?"

"That's much better. Punchier."

Everybody nodded in agreement. A golden rule of the news game: no unnecessary words. Another golden rule: Capital Letters Scream Drama.

"That brings me to a related point," Chuffrey said. "We haven't seen this kind of civil disobedience since the Animal Banns."

Glinda could, if she chose, remember the time of the Animal Banns in vivid detail. It was only six or seven years ago. She had still been a student herself. Eventually the Banns had been overturned, but enough damage had been done by then that she didn't care to recall those days too often.

The Diplomatic Correspondent raised his hand. He was quiet young man from the Vinkus who usually kept himself to himself. Nobody knew much about him outside of work. In the absence of concrete facts, the newsroom felt free to speculate wildly. Rumour had it that he was a spy. It was common knowledge that the Diplomatic Service and the Embassies were full of clandestine agents of various allegiances. A second rumour had it that he was some kind of dispossessed prince. He wore a ring on the third finger of his left hand, but whether that meant he was married was anyone's guess. According to Shenshen, half the girls in make-up were wild about him.

"Yes," said Chuffrey, breaking off. "Fiyero."

"Surely the Animal Banns were completely different set of circumstances?"

This seemed to gratify Chuffrey inordinately. "Exactly!" he said, thumping the table for emphasis. "Of course they were different. Distinctly. That's the very heart of the matter. We've seen this level of trouble before, but it's usually been focused around a single issue. Things are different this time. That's why Amanda and I have decided we need an additional post to provide coverage dedicated specifically to the more…_diffuse_ discontent we seem to be experiencing at present."

"Let's be clear," Amanda chimed in as several of the assembled correspondents began to fidget anxiously. "This isn't a replacement post. It's an entirely new vacancy. Isn't that right, Chuffrey?"

"Absolutely," Chuffrey said reassuringly. "This isn't going to take work away from anyone else. The new post will _only_ cover specific issues of unrest and upheaval. The official job title will be Discontent Correspondent. External advertisements go out on Monday, and we'll be interviewing applicants at the end of next week." He looked around the table. "Are there any other questions on this? No? Splendid. Now, what else do we have this morning besides the Shiz Incident?"

"The recession," said the Economics Correspondent, happily. "It just keeps going."

This prompted a ripple of laughter around the room. Nobody really thought the recession was funny; it was just the way many journalists dealt with the grim and the serious. Bad news was corrosive. Unadulterated exposure could cause subtle forms of harm. As a safety measure, Glinda let her thoughts drift briefly away, and wondered whether the Diplomatic Correspondent was truly and accurately a spy.

* * *

><p>As soon as the meeting was over she armed herself with black coffee and went back to her desk. As she was waiting for her computer to spark into life, she caught the overpowering scent of <em>Philosophy Nights<em> cologne_._

"I don't have time for your pick-up lines this morning, Avaric," she said, without turning round.

"They're not lines, Glinda. They're the truth. You're the most alluring woman I've ever met."

"Really? Well, you're the most odious man I've ever met."

Avaric sat down in the swivel chair at the vacant desk opposite Glinda's, put his feet up on the surface, and folded his hands nonchalantly behind his head.

"Don't you think you should admit the undeniable – that your outward disdain for me masks an irresistible attraction?"

"I'm not attracted to you in the slightest," she said.

"Picture this. Tomorrow night. You and me. The Press Association dinner. How about it?"

"No thanks."

"Be honest with me, Glinda," he said, suddenly serious. "Is it because I'm a cameraman?"

"No, it's because you're a lowlife."

"You wound me," he said, vainly smoothing back his hair. He wore it slicked back and slightly too long.

"Oh, I do not," she said. "I don't believe you even have feelings. If you did, you wouldn't have caused all that trouble with Pfannee and Shenshen."

He waved a hand, indifferent. "Girl's talk."

"That's right, Avaric. Girls _do _talk. Everybody in this building knows you're a real piece of work."

"What exactly is it I'm supposed to have done?"

"You're perfectly aware," said Glinda. "I'm not going to repeat it. But because I'm a nice person, and I like to do a good deed every day, I'm going to give you some advice. When you two-time a girl, and the girl you're two-timing her with is her best friend, sooner or later those two girls are going to work out that they're crying over the same scumbag."

"I'm trying to change. You could make me a better man."

"I doubt it."

"So that's a no for the Press Association?"

"The day I go out with you will be the day the sands stop shifting. Besides, I already have a date."

"How stupid of me," said Avaric, dramatically putting a hand to his forehead. "How could I forget? The lawyer of the week."

"His name is _Steve_," said Glinda coldly. "And we've been together for a month. Not that it's any business of yours."

He widened his eyes in mock disbelief. "A whole month! I'm sorry, I didn't see the engagement notice."

"I'm warning you, Avaric." She held up her coffee cup. "This is a very hot cup of coffee. I won't hesitate to spill it all over your – " She peered at his shoes over the low partition between the two desks. "What _are_ those loafers made of? Is that lizardskin?"

"It's fake," he said defensively.

"So you _do _have a conscience. Yet you hide it so well."

He took his feet off the desk, and straightened up. "You and I are the same, Glinda, even if you don't want to admit it. Take a look at your own life. This month it's Steve, last month it was Jones, next month it'll be Worth, Colton, Ken…who knows. Another dull associate from a Fortune 50 firm who takes you to the Brilliantine, can't dance, and orders the wrong champagne."

That was nonsense. She was _nothing_ like Avaric. Nevertheless, something in his words struck uncomfortably close to home. The lawyers were tailored, their suits were handsome…but Lurline, they could be awfully boring. Glinda felt a flash of anger – at Avaric's presumption, but also at herself, for being so easily guessed at.

She tossed her head haughtily. "You seem to think you know a lot about my personal life."

He grinned. "Girls talk, don't they?"

"I swear, Avaric – "

Hearing the real threat in her voice, he stood up and took a step back. "All right, all right. I'm going. But think about it, Glinda. You don't want to settle down any more than I do. I'm a gold-card catch, you're a stone fox. It's an ideal combination."

"That's an appealing offer. I'll give it some thought and get back to you in writing."

"Suit yourself," he said, shrugging his shoulders, before he turned on his lounge lizard heels and walked off. Glinda tossed her head once more, for good measure, and turned back to her computer screen. She tapped the keyboard distractedly, until the ringing of the phone made her jump.

"Glinda Upland, EBC1...oh, it's you, Steve. How sweet of you to call! You're just going into a meeting? What a coincidence - I just came out of a meeting. Yes, we're still on for tomorrow night. Seven o'clock would be wonderful...Don't forget to pick up your tux. I'll see you then!"

She put the phone down in lightly in its cradle, and felt as if some equilibrium had been restored.


	3. Cloud Descending

Every year, the Press Association of the Emerald City hired out the Crystal Plaza and threw everything it had into giving the Fourth Estate a wild fine time. The Fourth Estate repaid the favour by turning up in its party clothes to congratulate itself on existing, listen to a few speeches, empty the free bar, cut loose, and generally tear it up. Everyone got a ticket. For one night only, professional hierarchy was abolished. Typesetters drank Brandy Alexanders with radio station owners. Print and television got along famously until dawn, when the Plaza finally kicked them out.

Glinda had always loved going out principally because it gave her an excuse to do what she loved most of all: _getting ready to go out_. What should she wear? Who would be there? What might happen? Up until the second she left her apartment for the evening, there was no reason to believe it might not turn out to be_ the greatest night of her life so far_. So when she woke up that Saturday morning, it was with a song in her heart. The Press Association dinner lay ahead, and she had the luxury of a whole day to spend getting ready.

Throwing a robe on over her pyjamas, she went through to the little kitchen area of her apartment to make breakfast. The kitchenette opened into the living room, which was furnished in the minimalist style. After a brief and intense flirtation with chintz, Glinda had decided she was against excess in interior design. She had made an exception for the living room sofa, however. While the rest of the room was decorated in neutral hues, the sofa was a bold shade of fuchsia. It was rather high-concept, and not that comfortable to sit on, but it looked great with the steel-framed coffee table topped with smoked glass, and the deconstructed anglepoise lamps she had just got on sale at Zoro's. Glinda felt it really made a statement. Just looking at it gave her a sense of pride in her own eye for design and her command of aesthetic juxtaposition.

After her toast and coffee, she threw on some old clothes, tied her hair up in a scarf, and spent an hour tidying the apartment and taking care of all the stuff she never seemed to find time to do during the week. She had an appointment at the salon down the street that afternoon, so she was keeping an eye on the clock, but still somehow she ended up running late. By the time she finished her chores, washed and dressed properly, and put on a touch of lipstick, she already should have been out the door. She had her coat on and was frantically trying to find her keys (what did they do – get up and _walk_ when she wasn't looking?) when the telephone rang.

Bother. She was ten minutes late already. If she didn't leave right now, she might miss her appointment. It was probably just a sales call. Or her mother. But the second possibility made Glinda feel guilty – the night before, she hadn't called her parents after all. She had stayed late at EBC1 and then fallen asleep on the sofa after watching _Dixxi_. The loud _brrring brrring _from the living room took on an accusatory sound. She ran back through and caught up the receiver.

"Hello?"she said, out of breath.

"Glinda? It's me, Milla."

Milla, her husband Boq, and Glinda had all been at university together. Milla and Boq had gotten married straight after graduating and had settled down in rural Munchkinland, where Boq was an agricultural engineer. Although Milla and Glinda tried to keep in touch, their lives had diverged to such an extent in the past few years that their friendship persisted only via cards at Lurlinemas and the odd phone call. Each time they spoke, they would vaguely agree to try and meet up sometime, but Glinda was too busy with work to travel out to the country. Milla and Boq had three small children to look after, a house that needed a lot of work, and not much money; there was no way they could come to the city.

"Is this a bad time?" Milla said.

Glinda looked at her watch. "Well, I was just about to – "

"Oh, it _is_ a bad time," said Milla, apologetically. "I've been meaning to call you for weeks, but things have been so hectic I've hardly had time to think. Don't let me keep you. We can catch up another time."

Glinda was tempted to take the out. But she couldn't ditch Milla – it would be too rude. And it had been months since they had last spoken.

"Not at all," she said, as cheerfully as she could. "I was just about to go out, but it can wait. It's nothing important. How are you all?"

"Oh, everyone's fine. Boq took the kids to his parents' this morning, just to get them out of my hair for a while. It's all very well when they're crawling, but when they start running around…I can barely keep up. I turned my back for a second the other day – literally, one second, and Clarinda got into the laundry room. Oz knows how she managed it, but she got hold of the powder and emptied the box everywhere."

"It must be difficult trying to keep track of them all."

"That's an understatement," sighed Milla. Then her tone lifted. "They're a delight, really. It's not all sun and rainbows, but I wouldn't swap them for anything."

"Of course you wouldn't," said Glinda. "They're just _gorgeous_. They must be getting so grown up! You'll have to send me some pictures. I haven't the faintest idea what their angel faces look like these days."

Milla laughed. "Angel faces? Angels with _dirty_ faces, more like. You know how I felt about moving out here. I really wasn't that happy. But I can't say it's not good for the children. There's so much space for them to play. They just roll around in the grass and the mud all day long, happy as anything."

"What about you?" Glinda asked. "Do you feel any more at ease there?"

"It hardly troubles me now. I don't mind staying here at least until the children are ready to start school. Then maybe we'll think about moving closer to civilization. But enough about my domestic life – I want to hear about _you!_ Tell me what's been happening in the Emerald City."

Glinda tried to think. What could she tell Milla? When so much time went by between phone calls, it wasn't that she felt she had nothing to tell. It was more that there was _so much_ to relate that Glinda couldn't even begin to summarise it. And she was always conscious of not wanting to sound as if she thought her life was better than Milla's – more exciting, more glamorous. Naturally, she did think so. She could not _imagine_ herself stuck out in the sticks with nothing to do except raise children and sweep up laundry powder. She could imagine the children, one day. A little girl, maybe, with blonde hair like Glinda's own. But not the laundry powder. Not the countryside. Shudder.

That wasn't to say that she didn't respect Milla for what she did, or the path she had taken. And Glinda had always admired the way Milla and Boq had chosen to get married when they were both so young, with such certainty. Because how did you know? How did you _really _know? It had seemed to Glinda at the time – as it seemed to her now – an act of fearlessness.

"Glinda? Are you still there?"

"Yes! Yes, I'm still here," Glinda said hurriedly. "I just got distracted for a clock tick. What's been going on? Nothing much, really. Work. Dating. Mainly work. Things are really taking off."

"You don't have to tell me that! We do get EBC1 out here – although the picture is terrible when it rains. It's the aerial. But I dread asking Boq to go up on the roof in case he falls. I'm sure the slates are loose. Anyway, I have to say, you look _great_ on the news. It's like you're just meant to be there."

"Thank you," Glinda said, with the simple graciousness that came with having been complimented on her appearance her entire life. She had heard the words _you look great _(or a variation of them) so many times that it was like being told: _your eyes are blue_. It no longer spurred any vanity in her, but she appreciated having it pointed out nonetheless. "In fact, I've been trying this new diet. It's for skin clarity. You have to drink a lot of hot water, with lemon. I wasn't sure if it was working – I mean, I haven't really noticed a difference myself. I do cheat quite a lot though," she said ruefully. "I sometimes add maple syrup instead of lemon. I never have been able to shake my sweet tooth."

"Do you remember when you were addicted to those sugar gems?"

"Lurline, I forgot all about those! I used to get my mother to send me _packets_ from home. I couldn't even look at one now."

"I'm not surprised!"

"It was terrible. I must have had enough to last a lifetime. But I always seem to find something else to replace my existing obsession." The world of sweet, short-chain, soluble carbohydrates offered infinite temptations. Glinda silently consigned them all to damnation.

"Talking of existing obsessions," said Milla. "How are things going with Jones?"

This threw Glinda completely, until she recalled how long it had been since she last talked to Milla. "Well…" she hesitated, considering just saying _fine _to save the trouble of having to explain, but deciding this wasn't a mature course of action. "Actually, Jones and I aren't seeing each other anymore."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have asked."

"Honestly, it's perfectly fine. It was months ago. It's not like it was serious. We never really clicked, anyway." She decided, on balance, not to mention Steve. Steve was a _dream_, but Milla would only ask more questions, and Glinda didn't really feel like getting into a whole discussion about her personal life. Omitting a few details wasn't the same as lying – at least, unless you were in court.

Although she hated to admit it, Avaric's comments from the day before were still bothering her. It wasn't that she didn't want to settle down. She just didn't want to settle for anyone other than the right person. It was no different from wanting to do the best she could when it came to her career. Was that such a crime? Fine. Guilty as charged, and not sorry about it.

At the other end of the line, she heard a loud clattering and banging of doors, and the high, happy sound of children's voices.

"Looks like peace time is over," said Milla. "Hello, you little monsters." The last part sounded muffled, as if she had turned away from the phone. "Did you have a nice time with Granny? What's that you're treading all over the floor, Rikla? Take your outdoor boots off, please. Yes, you can have some cake, but only after you wash your hands and then come and tell me all about what fun you've had. Boq, did you let them go down by the riverbank? Their boots are _filthy_." Milla's voice abruptly came back into focus. "Sorry, Glinda. It's like the circus just rolled in." In the background, indistinct but familiar, Glinda heard Boq's voice. Milla answered him. "Yes, I'm talking to Glinda." A pause. More indistinction. "She's fine." Another pause. "Yes, I'll tell her. Could you go and make sure they're using soap as well as water?"

Glinda was beginning to find it difficult to keep track, and felt an absurd impulse to go and wash her own hands, check there was no river sludge on the carpet, and divest herself of her shoes, in reverse order.

"That was Boq," said Milla, stating the obvious. "He was asking how you were. He sends his love."

"He's so sweet," said Glinda. She said it reflexively, with little thought, although she did mean it; _he's so sweet_ was probably the same to Boq as _you look great_ was to her. "Tell him I send mine too. But listen, Milla, hadn't I better let you go?"

Milla protested, but she was soon confronted with a chorus of demands for the promised cake, and the process of hanging up commenced. First, Glinda and Milla both affirmed how much they had enjoyed catching up; secondly, they commented again on how well the other sounded; third, they agreed it had been far too long; fourth, they promised to try and "sort something out soon", although neither elaborated on what this might be; finally, they said goodbye, and Glinda felt the slight disorientation that comes from speaking to a friend from a very different time, in a distant place, connected only by wires. Also, she had comprehensively missed her manicure.

She called the salon to apologise, and ask if they had any other appointments, but they were fully booked that afternoon. No need to worry. She could do her own nails. She would have to take her current polish off first, though, and she had used the last of the remover, but there was nothing to stop her running out to the shops to buy some acetone.

It was only after she had spent a happy hour outside and quite an unexpected amount of money on the acetone, two new nail polishes (just in case), and several other purchases she had not intended to make (but which seemed quite essential) that Glinda returned to her apartment and realised her keys weren't in her handbag. They were still wherever they had hidden themselves, on the other side of the front door.

Luckily her next-door neighbour, a kindly old lady who always mispronounced Glinda's name, happened to be in, and Glinda was able to summon a locksmith. The locksmith took another hour to arrive, in which time Glinda ate too many of Mrs Clutch's home-baked cookies and listened to her gossiping about the rich families she had worked for during her time as a young Ama. By the time the locksmith let Glinda back into her apartment and charged her a flat-out _extortionate_ fee, it was half-past four.

That was fine. That was perfectly fine. She still had over two hours to get into the groove.

Twenty minutes later, with her face covered in Visage Cleanse and Enhance lotion, she was contentedly applying the second coat of Coral Sunrise to her toenails and shoulder-dancing to one of her favourite going-out records. Once the polish was dry she would take a bath and wash her hair, and then she just had to get into her dress and do her make-up, and she would be ready.

Over the shimmering, supple synthesizers of the record revolving on the turntable, the telephone rang.

Glinda regarded it warily. Answering the phone had got her into enough trouble already. But its shrill ring was ruining the beat.

"Lurline dash it all to Ev," she muttered. Hurriedly she set the lid back on the nail polish and hopped over to the stereo to turn down the music before picking up the phone.

"Hello?" she said, with some suspicion, relaxing only when she heard the deep, square-jawed voice on the other end. It was the voice of silk pocket squares, weekends at Caprice, and offices lined with leather-bound copies of _Oz Law Review_. Listening to it, Glinda felt a renewed sense of optimism. It was a rich and attractive voice, and there was really no reason to believe that it might not turn out to belong to the Ideal Guy.

"Oh, it's _you_, Steve. Thank Oz. I've been having the most ridiculous day. You wouldn't believe – Hold on. I can't hear you properly. Are you in the office? Poor darling, having to work on a Saturday…Is it that class action lawsuit? At least you can relax at the dinner tonight. I promise you won't have to talk about litigation to _anyone_. It doesn't officially start until eight, so if you want to pick me up at seven thirty instead of seven – sorry, what was that? You don't think you can make it? Steve, you're a _scream! _You really know how to make a girl laugh." On cue, Glinda laughed flirtatiously, but her merriment was cut short as the deep voice explained that its owner was, in point of fact, not joking.

At seventeen, nineteen, or even twenty-one, Glinda would have lost her cool at this kind of thing. Being stood up wasn't something she had ever dealt with well – especially not for major social events. Younger Glinda would have berated the errant suitor scaldingly, then looked around for something to throw. But she was older now. She didn't break vases or fly into tantrums. She counted to ten, and kept it on the level.

"That _is_ a shame," she said, composedly, with just the right amount of disappointment, and no trace of annoyance. It was a difficult tone to carry off. It said: _I'm sorry, but not _that_ sorry. Your decision to forgo my company grieves me, but only because you clearly haven't thought this through. _"But you mustn't feel bad about it – we all have to work, don't we? I won't hear another word of apology. It's simply not necessary. You just get on and deal with those torts. Yes…yes, I _will_ have a pleasant evening. Oh, that's too cute! You hang up first. No, _you _hang up! I'm not doing it. You hang up. No…"

Life was really too short for this, Glinda thought, and hung up executively as Steve was halfway through entreating her to do just that. As soon as she did so, however, the beastly phone rang _again_.

"_What._ What is it this time?! Hello?"

"Glinda, that isn't how a lady answers the telephone! A lady is always glad to receive calls."

"Momsie," Glinda said, slumping back against her uncomfortable sofa.

"Is everything all right? You sound on edge."

"I'm not on edge."

"Are you sure? Because you sound as if you are."

Glinda put a hand over her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. Like a cloud descending. 

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thank you so much for your reviews - it's so kind of people to take the time, and it's really appreciated. Next on _Emerald City Lies_: Glinda finally makes it to the Press Association dinner...and maybe gets to listen to the whole of Blondie's _Parallel Lines _without someone calling to interrupt her pre-going out shoulder-dancing (Steve really messed up _Heart of Glass_)**.


	4. Hacks and Cheats

After such a trying day, the question might well be asked whether the Glinda that alighted in front of the Crystal Plaza later that night looked anything less than a million dollars. Was her hair anything but perfect, falling in soft golden waves? Were her accessories anything but just right? Was her dress anything but breathtaking?

For an answer, Glinda only had to look around. Men who happened to be passing by turned their heads to stare at her: some kind of angel, getting out of a beat-up city cab. Across the street, a pizza delivery boy stalled his scooter at the lights on purpose just to watch her walk up to the Plaza's glitzy double-doors. The line of cars behind him hooted their horns, but the pizza boy didn't care. The waiting doorman remembered his job just in time, tipped his top hat and opened the door. Glinda smiled and thanked him as she drifted past. The doorman had a brief impression of heaven before he reluctantly turned back to face the street.

Glinda had nearly managed to regain her early morning high spirits. As she entered the ballroom of the Plaza, a waiter handed her a glass of champagne. She was a little late, but on the upside that meant she had missed the speeches – which were usually very dull. She found her table and saw that she was sitting next to Chuffrey and his wife. The third Lady Chuffrey, Glinda had to admit, was probably the most beautiful woman in the room. Her chestnut hair was piled high on top of her head, and her eyes were strikingly lined with kohl. The low neckline of her gown was accentuated with a solid gold pendant, and she wore matching gold bracelets on both her wrists, along with several heavy onyx and gold rings. Next to Lady Chuffrey, Glinda felt a little like cubic zirconium on display in a jeweller's window next to real diamonds. Sure, Glinda could make heads turn, but Lady Chuffrey could probably induce men to commit high crimes.

"Miss Upland!" Chuffrey beamed, resplendent in a burgundy velvet dinner jacket and black bow tie. "Are you joining us? Wonderful. Quite wonderful. We couldn't ask for more delightful company. You remember my wife? Pamela, you remember Miss Upland?"

"Lovely to see you, Miss Upland," Lady Chuffrey said, sounding like dark honey.

"And you, Lady Chuffrey. But you must call me Glinda, please."

Lady Chuffrey waved away her own honorific, the rings on her hand gleaming in the light. "_Lady Chuffrey_ makes me sound like a duchess. I'm no duchess. And I'm not that much of a lady, either."

Glinda choked on her champagne, and tried to disguise it as a cough. Chuffrey laughed uproariously. He took up his wife's hand and kissed it in the old-fashioned style. "Not that much of a lady! Ha, ha! Pamela, my dear, you light up my life!"

After she got over the initial awkwardness of having to sit next to her boss and watch him flirting with his intimidating wife, Glinda started to enjoy herself. Chuffrey regaled the table with his predictions for her bright future, and during the dessert and coffee she had a very productive conversation with a features editor from _Ozmopolitan_ who said she thought a profile on an up-and-coming high flyer like Glinda would make a great piece in the magazine – might Glinda be interested in doing an interview and a photoshoot? Glinda didn't need to think twice. She enthusiastically said yes, and the features editor promised that someone would be in touch in the next few weeks.

Once the army of waiting staff had cleared the tables, people started to get up from their seats and wander between groups or queue at the bar. Polite dinner talk over, the noise level ratcheted up. When the band on stage began playing a rhumba, Chuffrey and Lady Chuffrey made their excuses and headed for the dancefloor. Glinda noted that they danced Latin formal very well together – granted, Lady Chuffrey had been a professional dancer (whatever her particular area of expertise), but Chuffrey was unexpectedly sharp.

The rhumba finished and the band started playing the Hustle, causing cheers of rowdy approval. It was the latest craze: people were dancing the Hustle everywhere that autumn. Weddings, house parties, nightclubs, on TV, in the movies… A sports commentator she was friendly with from Channel 2 asked Glinda to dance, and they walked out onto the floor. They didn't bother making small talk, concentrating instead on the complicated routine. Glinda loved to dance, but she hated it when guys didn't know what they were doing. Plus there was always the danger that it was just an excuse for men to get handsy. In such situations, Glinda usually found a way to tread heavily on her partner's feet with her stilettos. To her relief, however, the Channel 2 man had done his homework. And he didn't try anything inappropriate. Around halfway through the song, Glinda realised that a small circle of admiration had opened up around them, and she flashed a smile at him.

"You're good at this!" he said, raising his voice so she could hear him over the music.

"Thanks!" she shouted. "You too!" (_handclap, spin, spin, forward, clap_).

"I don't see you in the clubs much!"

"Maybe you're going to the wrong ones!" (_Jump back, spin, NOW do the wave_).

"What are the right ones?"

"If you don't know, I can't tell you!" she said, and then they ceased talking as they threw themselves into the finish, earning a scatter of applause from the other dancers who had stopped to watch them.

A little breathless once the music stopped, Glinda and her partner looked at each other with mutual respect and platonic appreciation, congratulating themselves on the display of excellence they had just given. It was _fun_, that was all – the kind of carefree, for-its-own-sake fun that Glinda didn't really have that often, when she came to think about it. She made her way happily back to her table, which was now strewn with half-empty glasses and discarded cocktail umbrellas. Perhaps it wasn't the _greatest_ night of her life so far, but it was no bust. She decided that she had earned a daiquiri, or a pina colada, or something equally refreshing, and after collecting her purse she pushed her way through the crush towards the bar.

Some idiot in a white dinner jacket with his back turned to her was blocking the way. A white dinner jacket…and eye-watering, insufferable cologne.

"Avaric, would you excuse me?" she said, batting him with her purse. "You're in the way."

"Ask yourself, Glinda," he said, smoothly. "Is the fact that I'm standing in your way a coincidence? Or did Fate throw me into your path?"

"Fate can throw you somewhere else."

"A for effort out there on the dancefloor, by the way. Who knew Crope from Channel 2 was such a dynamic presence? You'd better watch out – Tibbett from _Good Morning Oz_ will be after you for stealing his escort."

Any clock tick now Avaric would ask her some insinuating question about where Steve was. And if he did that, Glinda thought she would slap him. Best to go on the attack first.

"Where's _your_ date?" she asked. "I don't see an unlucky lady on your arm. Couldn't you find anyone in your rolodex of desperation?"

"I'm back, honeybear," said Pfannee, appearing at Avaric's side with two glasses of champagne. "They didn't have any Grey Goose left, so I got you a – " She noticed Glinda, and put on her best un-friendly voice. "Oh. Hi."

"Pfannee, you're here with _Avaric?_"

"No need to sound so surprised about it," said Pfannee, sniffily. "Avaric and I are _together_. Isn't that right, honeybundle?"

Avaric smirked. "Whatever you say, babe."

Glinda shot him a look of disdain.

"I saw that, Glinda. If you think you can go around making eyes at other girls' boyfriends, well…" Pfannee tried to think of something cutting, and gave up. "Well, you can't."

"Believe me, Pfannee, you're welcome to him."

"Don't try to act all innocent, Miss Glinda-I'm-So-Good. Avaric told me what you did yesterday – tried to persuade him to take _you_ tonight instead of _me_. He came to you for advice about mending our relationship, and you tried to steal him for yourself! Do you know what I call that? A no-class move, that's what that is."

It was a good thing she hadn't made it to the bar, Glinda thought. If she had a drink in her hand, she might have tossed it in Avaric's face.

"That's nonsense,_" _she said. "You can't possibly believe that."

_"_Why not? You pretended to be friends with me, but you were after him the whole time!"

"You want to talk about friends?" said Glinda, trying to control her temper. "What about _Shenshen_, Pfannee? Did you think about how this is going to hurt her?"

Pfannee looked a little shamefaced, but wound her arm possessively around Avaric's. "She'll get over it. Once I explain this is true love, she'll understand."

"Looks like this is your chance, hot cakes," Avaric said, looking over Glinda's shoulder. "Here she comes now."

Under her All Day Concrete Cover foundation, Pfannee went pale. "_What?_"

"This ought to be good," Avaric whispered loudly to Glinda, behind his hand.

That did it.

As a harried waiter passed by them with a drinks order, Glinda seized the fullest-looking glass on the tray, checked to make sure it wasn't anything fancy – it would be a shame to waste a well-constructed cocktail on such a worthless target – and threw the contents square at his cheating, lying, _objectifying_ face.

"Are you _crazy?"_ shrieked Pfannee. "What do you think you're doing?"

To Glinda's fury, Avaric didn't look bothered in the slightest. If anything, he looked thrilled.

"Such passion, Glinda! Are you like this in private as well as public? Do tell me. Better yet – show me. Let's run away together right now."

"_Avaric!_" Pfannee screeched._ "_Don't fall for her cheap tricks!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Glinda saw that Shenshen had managed to elbow her way through the crowd and was approaching them with a thunderous look. Ignoring Avaric and Glinda entirely, she went straight for Pfannee.

"Who are you calling cheap?" Shenshen hissed. "Because maybe you'd better look in a mirror."

"Listen, this isn't how I wanted you to find out – "

"Find out _what_, Pfannee? That you went behind my back with _him? _After everything he did?"

"It wasn't like that!"

"What was it like, then? Go on. I'm dying to know."

"Ladies, ladies," Avaric said, not even trying to hide his amusement. "Please. Don't duel over me."

Other people around them were starting to pay attention to the escalating drama. Unlike during the Hustle, Glinda felt distinctly uncomfortable. She didn't want spectators thinking she was part of this sordid debacle.

"Come on, girls," she said to Pfannee and Shenshen. "Let's not fight. This jerk isn't worth it."

The two women glared at her.

"You stay out of this, Glinda!"

"That's right, _Glinda!_ You've caused enough trouble."

"All I'm saying is – " she tried again, but Shenshen interrupted.

"Did he tell you he was done running around?" she asked Pfannee. "Did he tell you he was going to take you speedboating on Lake Chorge? Did he tell you…did he tell you that he wanted you to meet his _mother?_"

The look of shock on Pfannee's face was enough to confirm that Avaric had, indeed, said all of these things. "How did you know?"

"Because he said exactly the same to _me, _when he called me last night and asked me to be his date. Except I said no, because I'm not _stupid_ – and besides, I thought _you and I were friends!_" Shenshen finished speaking, real hurt in her last words, and promptly burst into tears.

Pfannee looked uncertainly at Avaric. "That's not true, is it? Honey bear?"

"Of course not! They're just trying to break us up. You trust me, don't you?"

There was a tiny pause, and then a lot of things happened at once. Pfannee formulated a response to Avaric's question, which she expressed by slapping him in the face – or she would have done, if Avaric had not anticipated the slap and ducked at the last second, thereby throwing Pfannee off balance; she stumbled on her Perspex platforms and grabbed onto Shenshen for support. Shenshen, whose smudged mascara made her resemble a sad clown, was thrown off balance herself. Arms flailing in a vain attempt to stay upright, she tumbled to the floor along with Pfannee – but not before one of her windmilling fists caught Glinda (accidentally, neatly, heavily) on the jaw. The force of the blow sent Glinda reeling back into the table behind them, knocking over glasses and almost landing in the lap of the society columnist from _Metropolis Today_.

"What's going on here?" said a stern voice.

It was Amanda Morrible, come to see what the commotion was. She stood glowering over them like a headmistress. Glinda straightened up, pressing a hand to her face. The thudding pain was accompanied by a loud ringing in her ears.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Morrible asked her brusquely.

"Five?" Glinda said.

"What day is it?"

"Saturday?"

"Did you pass out, even for a clock tick?"

"No."

"Did you lose any teeth?"

"I don't think so."

"Good. But that's going to bruise, and you're back on air on Monday. We can't have you looking like you've been in a street fight. Go home and put some ice on it. As for this sorry brawl – I'm ashamed of you all. That includes _you, _Mr Tenmeadows," she called, as Avaric tried to slink away. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you that this is highly inappropriate behaviour for EBC1 employees. Management aren't going to be happy about this. Not one bit."

Technically, Morrible wasn't their boss. Chuffrey was their boss – excepting Shenshen, who answered to the Head of Superficial Services. The difference was that while Chuffrey (or the Head of Superficial Services, for that matter) didn't really scare anyone, Amanda could be terrifying.

"Glinda, what are you still doing here? The longer you wait the worse that's going to look," she snapped.

Did Glinda need to be told twice? Did she want to stick around to endure further abject humiliation? In short, was she anything other than _over the Oz-damned Press Association dinner already?_

She was out of there.

As she walked towards the Plaza lobby, she passed the exit to the gardens. It looked as if only a handful of guests were strolling along the gravel pathways. Electric lanterns twinkled in the imported palm trees, and in the background there was the gentle sound of a fountain. Perhaps it would help if she collected herself properly before she went and hailed a cab. She had paid for her ticket, hadn't she? Morrible had no right to tell her to leave. The ice pack could wait a little longer.

Glinda stepped out onto the terrace, into the tranquil night air. She wandered over to the one of the palm trees and rummaged in her purse to find her cigarettes. She very rarely smoked – it was a terrible habit, so unhealthy and damaging to the skin – but occasionally, if she was stressed, she found that a cigarette helped. It was the performance of smoking that calmed her, not the nicotine: usually, she let most of the cigarette burn down. It was something she must have picked up from watching her mother at home. Back when Glinda she was small – when Larena was everything that Glinda wanted to be when she grew up – her mother used to stand at the window and smoke a single cigarette most afternoons. Cashmere twinset and pearls, jet cigarette holder, saying to Glinda: "_Momsie's just having some quiet time, darling. Restoring the nerves._" Now that Glinda was grown up herself, and so unlike her mother in so many ways, she still hadn't unlearned that particular lesson. When life troubles a lady, a lady lights a Pertha Filter.

At least, if her lighter works.

"Feckless thing," muttered Glinda, as the flame sparked, flickered, and went out. She tried again. No dice. She was about to go and ask one of the other people in the gardens if they had a light when a shadow fell across the pathway, out of nowhere.

"Can't you read?" the shadow said. "The sign says No Smoking."

"Lurline, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that! You nearly gave me a – " _heart attack_, Glinda was going to say, but she found she couldn't say another word. Because the stranger in front of her was _green_. Green as grass. Green as envy. Green as…_ no normal person ought to be_.

"Who in Oz are you_?_" Glinda said, shock displacing her sense of decorum.

The green woman laughed, not nicely. "Who am _I?_ I'm the spirit of the gardens. I stop people from smoking in designated no-smoking areas."

Glinda risked taking a closer look at the stranger – not _too _close; it was too horrible. The green woman was very tall, and wore a plain, shapeless dark dress. Her face was hard, and her hair was black as ink.

"You don't look very spiritual," said Glinda sceptically. "And you're very rude."

"You are correct," said the green stranger, as if being neither spiritual nor polite was an immense source of satisfaction to her.

Glinda busied herself with her lighter, defiantly. "I don't see any no-smoking sign."

The woman raised a green finger and pointed at the trunk of the palm tree, above Glinda's head. Affixed to the tree was a neon sign reading _Please Do Not Smoke_.

"Easy to miss," she said. "If you're blind."

Glinda narrowed her eyes. "You don't work for the Plaza."

"Don't I, indeed? How do you know?"

"One, you're not wearing a uniform. Two, the Plaza is a premium establishment. I doubt they'd employ someone so...ill-mannered. And intrusive_."_

"What about you?" said the woman.

"Me?" Glinda was nonplussed. "If you're implying that _I'm _ill-mannered and intrusive – "

"I mean," said the woman, speaking very slowly and deliberately, as if Glinda was stupid, "how do I know _you're_ who you say you are?"

The woman must be a simpleton, Glinda decided, although there was a glint in her eye that Glinda didn't like. "I haven't said who I am."

"And who was that again?" said the green woman.

"Who was what?" Glinda said, starting to get confused.

"Who you said you were."

"I didn't!"

"So who are you?"

"_Glinda Upland! _I'm _Glinda Upland! Don't you watch the news?_"

"No need to shout," the green woman said, maddeningly. "Of course I watch the news. However, I wasn't aware that having one's face appear nightly on television means that one no longer needs to introduce oneself to others."

"That is _not_ what I meant! And I note you've done nothing but evade introduction yourself."

As if by magic, the green woman produced a clean white business card and handed it to Glinda. "Elphaba Thropp."

"Excuse me?"

"Elphaba Thropp. _Emerald Herald_."

"You're a _reporter?_"

"Aren't we all?" said the green woman, with a sweeping gesture towards the ballroom and the still-partying members of the Press Association within. "That is, almost all of us."

"_You're _the one who wrote that article on the Shiz Incident yesterday?"

Elphaba Thropp curled her lip scornfully. "Oh, that."

The scorn was unexpected; that article had been _good_, Glinda thought - not that she was going to tell the green woman so. "Plenty of people in that ballroom would give anything to get on the front page of the _Herald!_"

"Front page today, waste paper tomorrow," the green woman said, matter-of-factly.

Glinda was appalled. "You appear to have a supremely low opinion of your profession, Miss Thropp."

"Our _mutual _profession, Miss Upland. But perhaps you don't consider yourself to be a journalist. Perhaps, after all, you're right. Anyone can read from an autocue. I dare say a trained monkey could do it – although a monkey wouldn't look quite so vapidly pretty, and I suppose that's the only other main requirement for your job."

"Why, why – " Glinda sputtered, incoherent with anger. "Why, that is the most disrespectful, insulting, _inaccurate _thing anyone has ever – " She almost stamped her foot. "I'm a _real journalist!_"

Despite all the force she put into the words, they sounded strangely unconvincing. Glinda felt like she was five years old again, yelling "_I'm a real princess!_" at her Ama when dress-up time was over. The feeling was reinforced by the green woman's response, which was exactly the same as her Ama's had been.

"If you say so," she said.

"Look, you – you _creature_ – whoever you are, I don't care! Since this morning I've been locked out, stood up, almost knocked out, and practicall_y thrown out_. As if all of that wasn't enough – _you _had to come along and ruin the last remnants of my evening. I'm clearly not going to smoke, seeing as you've been so good as to go out of your way to tell me I can't. So why don't you do me one last kindness and _leave me alone!_"

"Oh dear," said the green woman, not sounding sorry. "I see I've given offence."

"That's an understatement!"

"It was never my intention to single you out for special insult, Miss Upland; indeed, there is nothing particularly special about you. As far as I'm concerned, the entirety of the press is composed of nothing but fakes, hacks, liars, and cheats - and that includes myself. The fault is collective, not personal. There, are we reconciled?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Good night, Miss Upland. Enjoy your remnants."

And then she was gone, leaving Glinda with only the business card and a feeling of white-hot rage. She would have set the Oz-damned card alight – just to show what she thought of the evident inadequacies of the _Herald_'s hiring policy – but she had to content herself with tearing it up into tiny pieces instead. Seeing nowhere to dispose of them, she was stopped from simply tossing them away by imagining a flashing _No Litter_ sign somewhere. The vile green thing would probably come back just to point it out.

With a grimace, Glinda dropped the torn-up pieces of card into her purse. All she needed now was to break a heel between here and home, and it would be the perfect finish to the perfect night.


	5. That's What Over Sounds Like

Glinda was glad when Monday rolled around. Other people dreaded the first day of the week, but she preferred to think of it as a clean slate.

"Glinda, could you step into my office please?" Chuffrey called, as she passed by his door on her way to her desk, after the morning meeting.

"Is this about Saturday night?"

"Amanda told me what happened. I just wanted you to know that I hold Mr Tenmeadows solely responsible. Utterly responsible! He's on a final disciplinary warning."

Chuffrey never really managed to sound forbidding when he was telling someone off. He only ever sounded disappointed – like an uncle let down by a favourite niece or nephew. Avaric had probably torn up his disciplinary warning already.

"As for that nonsense in the paper, don't worry about that," Chuffrey continued. "It's not pleasant, but it does come with being in the public eye."

Nonsense in the paper? What was he talking about?

"I'm sorry, Chuffrey, I don't quite follow."

"Ah," he said, worriedly. "You haven't seen it."

"Seen what? I usually read the _Herald_ on the train, but they were sold out at the station." That wasn't true. Glinda hadn't read the _Herald_ because she was privately boycotting it. She didn't want to read anything by Miss Thropp.

"Not the _Herald_," said Chuffrey. "_Metropolis Today_."

_Metropolis Today_ was known for printing only the most sensational stories and scurrilous celebrity gossip. Very few people owned up to reading it, yet somehow it was the biggest selling daily newspaper in the city. Chuffrey reached over to his in-tray, and handed her a folded copy of that morning's edition.

"Turn to page twelve."

"Royal Lurline!" Glinda nearly dropped the paper. There on the page was an expertly-timed photograph of her in the ballroom of the Plaza, right after Shenshen hit her. Worse, the picture desk hadn't bothered to re-touch the red-eye from the flash. "I look _demented!_"

Then she looked down and saw the caption under the picture.

_EBC1's SIX O'CLOCK SWEETHEART IN LOVE QUADRANGLE SHOWDOWN_

_The opulent surroundings of the Crystal Plaza played host to the annual Press Association dinner on Saturday night. Attendees included EBC1's glamorous Glinda Upland, pictured here after an argument over the affections of playboy cameraman Avaric Tenmeadows left the blonde beauty smarting. _

"Great Oz." A burning wave of shame, followed by disgust. Despair. "This is mortifying!They make it sound like – "

She broke off, suddenly recalling the stares she had received from people on the train that morning. She had just thought it was due to her usual recognition factor.

"How many people do you think have seen this already?" she asked Chuffrey anxiously. Hundreds, probably. It simply didn't bear contemplating. Chuffrey avoided the question and tried to reassure her.

"The best thing to do is pay no attention to it, Miss Upland. Empty column inches. That's all this stuff is! People will forget all about it when Tuesday's paper prints something even more scandalous."

Where had she heard something like that before? The green terror, in the Plaza gardens – hadn't she said something similar? Glinda twisted her face into a bright grimace that she hoped would pass for a smile, and forced herself to say the words.

"Front page today, waste paper tomorrow, right?"

Chuffrey beamed at her proudly. "Very good, Glinda! Capital. That's just the kind of attitude we need from our key talent. Shake it off and look ahead! Now, if you'll excuse me, the adverts for the new correspondent job go out today and I need to check them over…You don't mind closing the door on your way out, do you? Splendid."

As Glinda made her way back to her desk, the open-plan office had the unmistakeable feeling of having just gone silent after a bout of malicious hilarity. How many of her colleagues had seen the _Metropolis Today_? Dumb question. Even if they hadn't seen it personally, nothing travelled quicker in the newsroom than gossip.

That left Glinda with two ways to play the situation: brazen it out, or make like wrap and shrink.

"Everybody!" she called, so that the whole room could hear her. "If I could have your attention, just for a moment…thank you." She smiled. "I guess you all know by now that I'm today's page twelve pin-up in the _Met_."

Whoops and catcalls from the less reconstructed men in the room; bemused silence from others who weren't sure where she was going with this.

"Settle down!" She hushed the catcallers. "I just wanted to make a special announcement. As a one-time only favour, I'll be happy to sign your copies of this ground-breaking piece of journalism in the break room this afternoon between three o'clock and three-fifteen. That's all."

Glinda sat down to peals of laughter; happily, she had done enough to make sure they were laughing with her, not _at_ her anymore. A normal level of chatter filled the newsroom as people went back to their work.

There were a couple of phone messages waiting for her, including two missed calls from Steve. She had half a mind to ignore them. She wasn't feeling very enamoured with Steve. If he hadn't been so tied up with his dusty class action case, Saturday night might not have been such a write-off. He hadn't called on Sunday either. No flowers, no abject apology, no promise to make it up to her. He was supposed to be her _boyfriend_, wasn't he? Maybe it wouldn't hurt to let him know that he had better shape up if he wanted to stay that way. Quickly, she dialled his work number.

"Steve?" she said, when he picked up on the second ring. She was going for brisk and businesslike, with a touch of hauteur. "Yes, it's me. I got your messages. What's that? Why didn't I call you back sooner? I was away from my desk. I do have other things to do, you know. If you wanted to talk to me you could have called me yesterday. Yes, I was at home all day…Of course I was _alone!_ What are you trying to say? Oh – you saw it already. "

The paper. Steve had seen the newspaper. Another wave of mortification. Glinda let it pass, and then she rallied.

"I'm surprised at you, Steve, reading a rag like the _Metropolis_. They make half their stories up out of thin air…No, I can't deny that's me in the photograph – but it didn't happen the way they make it sound. Yes, I know it looks bad! How do you think it makes _me _feel?"

Glinda glanced up from the phone and saw several of her colleagues averting their gazes a fraction too late, furiously trying to listen in.

"Sorry, could you repeat that, Steve? I'm surrounded by _shameless vultures_," she said loudly. "It looks bad for the what? For the _firm?_ _It looks bad for the firm?!_"

Had Steve always sounded like this? Deep-voiced, square-jawed, rich…_patronising_. Uptight and self-obsessed. Like the kind of man who never tipped generously. The kind of man who acted like his career was more important than hers. The kind of man who looked the part, but couldn't play it. Just another tile in the domino run of Glinda's dud romances.

"I get it," she said, coldly. "You're not calling to find out how I am, or tell me you don't care about stories in the gutter press. You're calling to accuse me of sabotaging your chances of making partner!I'm not some trophy – some _trinket_ you can use to improve your image. If that's what you're looking for, then you've got the wrong girl."

The newsroom had dropped all pretence of not listening.

"I hate to say it, but I don't think this is – I beg your pardon? _You don't think this is working out?!_ How coincidental! That's just what _I_ was going to say! In fact, I think we should break up. Oh, you think so too? _Fine_. Let's break up! Yes, you can consider that a binding verbal contract! Goodbye, _Steve!_"

She slammed the phone down so hard it bounced back off the hook.

"Did you all get that?" she yelled at the room. "That's what _over_ sounds like!"

Unable to sit there and have everyone look at her like she was a lunatic, she went down to the second floor and hid in a cubicle in the ladies' room for half an hour. Then she went to lunch early. On her own. Because she was Glinda Upland. And she _didn't give a hot damn._

* * *

><p>No more lawyers, she decided. Better not to date at all – just for a little while – than waste time in dalliances that didn't work out, or feel the sense of failure that came with each inevitable break-up. Failure wasn't what Glinda was about.<p>

Her mother was horrified by this resolution.

"You'll never find anyone if you just stop looking, darling! You've got to work at it."

"It's not as if I'm going into a _mauntery_, Momsie. I'm just taking a break. It'll be good for me. And for your information, I don't expect relationships to be a breeze! But surely being with someone shouldn't feel like such hard work all of the time."

"It's a lifelong occupation, Glinda. Look at your father and I."

It was no secret that her parents hadn't married for love. Her mother's family had needed money, while her father had needed good social connections. They were always cordial and affectionate with each other, but they spent as little time alone together as possible while still living in the same house.

"You're not going to tell me you and Daddy have been happy together all these years," said Glinda.

"Happiness isn't everything," her mother cautioned. "We haven't always been happy, but we haven't been _unhappy_ either. We've been quite content. And we had you, didn't we?"

"You're making me sound like a consolation prize."

"That's not true, darling. You're our priceless jewel. You've brought us nothing but _joy_. But that's another point – if you want to have children, you aren't getting any younger."

"Mother, please. I'm _twenty-six._"

"Precisely, darling – why, in four years you'll be thirty!"

Thirty. By the time Glinda turned thirty, Chuffrey would have retired. Glinda was the obvious choice to replace him in the ten o' clock slot. But why stop there? There was no reason why she couldn't make Head of News before she turned thirty-five. She could see it so clearly: _youngest ever Head of News, first woman to run a national newsroom_…

"You don't want to leave it too long, you know," her mother said, disrupting Glinda's runaway train of thought. "I had you when I was your age, and believe me, it wasn't a walk in the park. It took me _years_ to get my figure back. The older you get –"

"There are things I want to do first, Momsie. I'm going places."

"What good are these exotic locations if you're _alone_, Glinda? It breaks my heart to think of you ending up lonely and left on the shelf."

"I'm not lonely!"

She wasn't lonely. She _wasn't_. It never crept up on her as she tried to relax on her luxury sofa, watching soap operas and the _Friday Night Late Show_, eating Charm Bombs out of the box. It never worried her in the darkling hours when she couldn't sleep. She never had to push quiet, fearful questions to the back of her mind. Questions like: what if she never found anyone? Deep down, what if she was just too shallow, too picky, too lazy - not brave enough? What if the Great Love Affair arrived – or even the Halfway Acceptable Love Affair – and she couldn't handle it?

All the more reason to take a dating holiday. Focus on herself, before rushing into anything new. There was certainly enough going on at work to keep her busy. The crackdown on the students at Shiz hadn't stopped protests from breaking out at other, smaller colleges and institutes of learning, and the dissent only seemed to be increasing. The new Discontent Correspondent would be hard pressed to keep up.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, there were so many applications for the job that Chuffrey and Morrible had to schedule extra interviews. The following week, however, Chuffrey announced that they only had one candidate left to see.<p>

"Let's hope they hire someone good," said Pfannee, stopping by Glinda's desk on her way out to lunch. "And by 'good' I mean 'eligible bachelor.'"

Pfannee and Shenshen were both speaking to Glinda again, as well as each other. Glinda hadn't exactly missed their scintillating conversation. But it made the atmosphere at work a little easier. In particular, Shenshen was a dangerous enemy to make. She was not above trowelling on clashing orange blusher and over-drawing people's eyebrows while they sat helpless in hair and make-up.

"I don't think that's what Chuffrey and Amanda will be going for."

"That's what _I'd_ be looking for, if I were them," Pfannee sighed. "The only decent prospect in this place in this place right now is Fiyero, and who even knows what _his _deal is. Are you coming to lunch? We're going to the place down the street."

"You go ahead," said Glinda. "I have to finish this."

She was busy trying to hammer out the first draft of her script for that evening's bulletin. Among other things, it was Glinda's job to word the six o'clock headlines and summaries; write the introductions to pre-recorded reports; plan what she would say during link-ups with correspondents live on location; write questions for the times when she had to interview guests in the studio; and conduct background research, chase quotes and check sources like everybody else.

That was why it annoyed her when people thought she just _read out_ the news - she wrote half the stuff herself. After wrestling with the draft for another hour, Glinda handed in what she had written to Chuffrey, who would check it over and either approve it or tell her to make changes. Then she had to think about where to get lunch. The bakery down the block had the best pretzels and bear claws, but it was freezing out and she didn't feel like facing the chill air. She rode the elevator down to the ground floor and went to the EBC1 canteen instead, where they served ditchwater coffee and terrible food. After picking up some soup and a sandwich, which looked like the least worst option, Glinda sat at a table with some of the girls from Payroll. They tended to go around in a gang, like a clique of pink flamingos, and were always good for the lowdown on general EBC1 business. One of them told her that Fiyero Tigulaar had half his check sent back to the Vinkus every month, which was interesting to know. She had such a diverting time that she stayed in the canteen far longer than she had planned and wound up having to rush back to the newsroom.

Typically, the elevator took an age to arrive. Glinda watched impatiently as the numbers on the floor-counter dwindled down. Finally it reached the ground. The doors opened, and there stood the last person she would have expected to see, green as a cricket in a metal matchbox and just as disagreeable: none other than –

"Miss Thropp!" exclaimed Glinda, startled this time into formality.

The green woman looked a little startled herself. "Miss Upland."

There was an absurd, awkward silence before it occurred to Glinda to question what Elphaba Thropp was doing at Television Centre in the middle of the working day.

"Pleasant, or _unpleasant_, as it is to run into you again, Miss Thropp, I'd love to know what brings you all the way up town this afternoon. Don't they have elevators in the _Herald_ building you can haunt?"

"I had a meeting," said the green woman, coolly.

"Who with?"

"Do you double as building security, Miss Upland? Look, here's my visitor's pass." Elphaba flashed the laminated card hanging around her neck. "I'd love to stand here and be interrogated, but I happen to have to get back to work. So if you don't mind…"

A dread possibility suggested itself to Glinda.

"Wait. You were here to see Chuffrey and Morrible, weren't you? You were _interviewing _for the correspondent job!"

"Your deductive abilities are astounding. I may have underestimated you, Miss Upland."

"You can drop that act. I know exactly what you think of me – you made it quite clear the other night."

"We were speaking under an ill-tempered moon."

Lurline, the girl was so _weird!_ So quick and…distracting. It wasn't just her colour; it was her way of speaking. She had no interest in obeying the conventions of conversational flow. Whatever she said seemed designed purposefully to derail whoever she was speaking to.

"Why?" demanded Glinda. "Why would you even _want_ to work here, Miss Thropp? You as good as told me you thought TV was stupid."

"I did no such thing, Miss Upland. Television isn't stupid. Only a fool would think so. The medium of television is extremely powerful – as I'm sure you're well aware. It's what's _on_ the box that's idiotic."

Before Glinda could respond, a small, fat man barrelled up to them. He had a briefcase in one hand, a mackintosh slung over his other arm, and he was obviously in a rush.

"Ladies, I've got a meeting on the tenth floor in two minutes. If you're not planning on taking this elevator, leave it to someone who will."

There was the point in arguing with the green woman any longer. She had wasted enough of Glinda's time.

"Actually, I was just on my way to the sixth floor," Glinda said.

"Great. Hop in. Let's go." The man looked at Elphaba. "What about you, swamp thing?"

The casual cruelty of the insult made Glinda flinch, despite the fact it wasn't directed at her. But if it had any effect on Elphaba Thropp, she didn't show it. Ignoring the man, she simply started walking away.

"Goodbye again, Miss Upland," she called over her shoulder. "It was a pleasure – or not, as you wish."

"Oh, she's just the _worst!_" Glinda forgot that a clock-tick ago she had almost felt sorry for the green woman.

"I'm sure she is," said the man, nervously, as the lift began its slow, clanking ascent. He knew nothing about the dispute he had unwittingly blundered into, but Glinda seemed as angry as a bee in an empty jam jar. In his experience, provoking bees or crazy dames in confined spaces wasn't a good idea.

"I mean, who does she think she is?"

"Beats me," said the man, willing the lift to go faster.

Only one thing consoled Glinda, and that was the thought that Chuffrey and Morrible would never give the job to someone so patently unsuitable. Miss Thropp wouldn't get hired. Not a hope in Ev.

But Glinda was wrong.

The very next day Chuffrey told the newsroom that they had offered the job of Discontent Correspondent to Elphaba Thropp, formerly of the _Emerald Herald_, and she had accepted. Effective immediately.


	6. Happy Birthday

"She's a _fiend,"_ Avaric said three weeks later, as he collapsed into the chair at the desk opposite Glinda's. He was wearing a paisley shirt, with the top three buttons undone in order to show off the tacky gold medallion he was fond of wearing. Since the Press Association debacle, he had been marginally better behaved at work - though that wasn't saying much.

"Who is?" Glinda asked.

"Miss Thropp. Elphaba. Our green devil. She nearly got us both maced this afternoon, when we were on assignment. It was only meant to be a five-minute piece. Just her speaking to camera outside the Education Ministry."

"About Shiz?"

The students at Shiz University had started a sit-in protest, occupying the library and other parts of the campus, stopping classes and trying to persuade professors to join them. Their reason? The young man who had thrown the paint at the Education Minister had been convicted of assault. The State Prosecutor argued that the Minister was an emissary of the Wizard, and that therefore the young man's actions could be interpreted as a symbolic attack on the entire government. She had pushed for a heavy sentence, and the young man had been sent to Southstairs for five years.

"That's right," Avaric said. "_More trouble at Shiz_, blah blah blah, _ongoing talks between the student leaders and a special government delegation_, so on and so forth, _tune in tomorrow for more on this riveting tale of trouble and strife._ Wham, bam, thank-you ma'am. We get there, we set everything up. No problem. We start rolling, and who do you think turns up?"

"I don't know," Glinda said drily. "Given that you were outside the Ministry for Education, could it have been the Education Minister?"

"That's why you're the complete package, Glinda. A body to die for _and_ intellect to spare."

"Get back to the story or get out of my sight."

He smoothed his hair back and took up the tale. "This ministerial car pulls up, and out gets the Minister for Education, with a couple of Guards. They must have toughened up his security since the paint incident. Anyway, Miss Thropp catches sight of him, and she decides this is the perfect moment for a guerrilla interview. So she just stops in mid-sentence and strides off towards him. All I can do is run after her and try to keep filming. The security guards turn round and see this crazed microphone-wielding monster, charging towards them. They're yelling at us to freeze, but she just ignores them and keeps on going."

"Then what?" said Glinda. "Did she reach the Minister?"

"Those Guards don't mess around," he winced, shaking his head. "Neither does she. They tried to tackle her – bear in mind, these guys are built like _tanks_ – but she tried to tackle them back. It was like watching Pro Wrestling: Green Freak versus Hired Goons."

"What about you?"

"Are you _mad_? I stayed out of it. Look at this face." He pointed to himself. "Look at this physique. I'm a gift to women everywhere. I can't jeopardise that by getting involved in unnecessary physical conflict."

Avaric's giftliness wasn't a topic Glinda wanted to pursue. "I take it you won't be going out on assignment with Miss Thropp again, then."

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Working with her might turn out to be highly entertaining. She's _fearless_. How many of the stiffs around here do you think would pull a stunt like that? Plus, she looks good on camera."

"You can't be serious!"

"Don't be jealous, Glinda. You're still my number one small-screen goddess. I don't mean she looks _attractive_ on camera. I mean she holds the eye – demands attention. She's ugly, but she's got presence. From a visual perspective, she's fascinating."

"What a rhapsody, Mr Tenmeadows," said Elphaba, appearing from nowhere. "While I'm flattered, perhaps you might take your visual perspective elsewhere and stop cluttering up my desk."

How did she _do _that? thought Glinda. How could someone so conspicuous move with such stealth?

"I can take a hint." Avaric stood up to go. "See you around, ladies."

"Infrequently, I hope," Elphaba said.

She had only been working at EBC1 for three weeks, but to Glinda it felt like three years. To her dismay, the empty desk opposite her own had been allocated to the new arrival. Not content with ruining Glinda's view, Elphaba had refused to use the computer that had been installed for her, and insisted on bringing in her own ancient electric typewriter. She was clattering away on it whenever Glinda arrived in the morning, and often she was still there when Glinda left at night. Thankfully she spent a lot of time out of the building in between times, chasing stories. She certainly hadn't gone out of her way to make any friends. She was prickly to everyone and rudely rebuffed any efforts to include her in EBC1 camaraderie. Glinda had tried – she really had. She reasoned that if they had to work opposite each other, the least she could do was be civil to the green woman.

"Do you want to join us for lunch, Miss Thropp?" she would ask, unwillingly.

Elphaba didn't even glance up from her typewriter. "Lunch is for losers."

Or, a few days later:

"A bunch of us are going for drinks after work," said Glinda, through gritted teeth. "You're welcome to come."

"No, thank you. Drinks are for wasters."

One last attempt:

"There's a birthday card going around for Shenshen – do you want to add your name to it?"

"Who is this Shenshen?" Elphaba asked. "Why should I sign her birthday card? One, I don't know her. Two, I don't care. Three, birthdays are for infants."

"I guess you won't be interested in singing Happy Birthday, either."

"Your guess is accurate, Miss Upland."

"Or that you won't want any birthday cake."

"Too true."

"I suppose you think cake is an indulgence for imbeciles."

"I dislike cake."

Glinda's patience ran out. "Nobody hates birthday cake – _nobody!_ What's your problem, Miss Thropp?"

"_You _are." The green woman looked at her for the first time in the conversation, and Glinda noticed that her eyes were not black, as she had first thought; they were deep brown.

"_Me?!_" she said, incredulous.

"You seem set on disturbing my concentration with these endless invitations, which we both know you don't really want me to accept."

"Excuse me for trying to be _nice_, Miss Thropp. Were you like this at the _Herald_? If so, I can't imagine you left many friends behind."

"I don't have any friends," Elphaba said, like it was something to be proud of. "I'm not here to make any, either. I'm here to work."

_Stay professional_. _Don't let her rattle you_.

"All right, Miss Thropp. I won't dare to say a friendly word. From now on, I won't speak to you at all unless it's work-related. You stick to your desk, I'll stick to mine, and we'll get along just fine."

"That sounds eminently satisfactory."

"Good!"

"Good," said the green woman, with a shark's smile.

* * *

><p>"It must be a drag having to sit right in front of her all day."<p>

Five fifty-five, and the six o'clock team was on set. Pfannee, whose new favourite hobby was talking about Elphaba behind her back, was putting off going over to the weather board until the last possible moment so that she could grill Glinda about her deskmate.

Glinda clipped her microphone onto her jacket, and checked it was fastened properly. "She types like she's throwing rocks down a hill," she said. "I've had to start stockpiling Advil for headaches."

"I don't get it," said Pfannee. "How did she pass her screen test without cracking the camera lens?"

It was a cheap shot, but Glinda laughed.

"I can't _believe_ she and Nessarose Thropp are sisters. I mean, Nessarose was off the rails, but at least she's pretty."

Glinda's guess on first seeing Elphaba's byline in the _Herald_ had turned out to be correct: the green reporter was the future Eminent Thropp's elder sister. If anyone in the newsroom was curious as to why Elphaba, as the eldest, wasn't next in line for the Eminency, they didn't have the courage to ask. Nessarose herself had dropped out of the headlines somewhat. She had gone into rehab, and hadn't done anything newsworthy for a while.

"I asked her if she wanted to sign Shenshen's birthday card and she nearly took my head off," said Glinda. "She's probably never had a birthday party in her life. Can you even picture it?"

"Three minutes to air!" came the shout. "Pfannee, get away from the anchor desk."

"I'm going! I'm going," Pfannee said, not moving. There was thoughtful look on her face. She wasn't the most intellectual cookie in the box, but she was way ahead when it came to scheming. "Listen, Glinda, I've got an idea for livening things up..."

* * *

><p>Elphaba made a habit of coming into work early, when it was still quiet. Sure enough, on Friday morning, she stalked into the newsroom at seven-thirty on the dot. But the newsroom was quieter than it ought to have been. In fact, it was completely deserted. Glinda had thought this might be a give-away – that walking into a newsroom abandoned as a ship might lead Elphaba to suspect something was up.<p>

She needn't have worried, however. The green woman was oblivious. From her vantage point, crouched down behind the filing cabinets, Glinda saw Elphaba walk to her desk, switch on her typewriter, take off her coat. She produced an apple from her bag, and set it down on a pile of notebooks.

There was a muffled sound from over by the water cooler, like someone trying not to sneeze, followed by a whispered "Shh!"

Elphaba heard it, and looked round. Glinda saw her registering the emptiness of the room around her – saw the thought dawning: _this doesn't look right_…Then Glinda heard Pfannee fire the toy pop gun that was meant to act as the signal.

"SURPRISE!"

_People_. People everywhere, jumping out from under their desks, from behind the door to Chuffrey's office, from the break room, all wearing ridiculous hats, popping streamers, grinning. Someone shoved a bunch of balloons into Elphaba's hand, while Pfannee slapped a huge sticker on her shoulder. Elphaba tried to read what it said, with some difficulty. It was upside down.

"_Today's a special day because it's_ _my_…" she deciphered "…_birthday_. It's my birthday?"

"IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!" The newsroom roared back at her.

"What in Oz…no, it's not. It's _not_ my birthday!"

"Isn't it?" said Glinda, lightly. "Oh dear. Our mistake. Since we're all here, though, you might as well play along."

Then everyone started singing, like a pack of wolves.

"_Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you_…"

"Stop that this instant – " Elphaba tried to hush them. But they just kept on bawling the song. She turned to Glinda, who was wearing a plastic tiara and singing like a saint. "Was this ritual humiliation your idea, Miss Upland?"

Glinda stopped singing. "I'm just a co-conspirator, Miss Thropp. But I can't deny that I'm enjoying the spectacle."

"…_Happy birthday, dear Elphabaaa, happy birthday to you!_"

"Here's your birthday hat," said Glinda, handing her a grotesque, black, pointed thing.

"I'm not wearing this. It looks like a dunce's cap at a funeral."

"People came in _extra early _for this party," Glinda trilled. "I suggest you put the hat on and act like you're having fun." She clapped, excitedly. "Look, here comes the cake!"

"Why, what appetising icing," Elphaba said in a deadpan voice. "How original. How imaginative."

The cake was covered in mould-green icing, with green candles. Someone switched the lights off, although it didn't make much difference – the low winter sun had risen, and was casting a pale light through the sixth-floor windows.

"Miss Thropp, do you think we're trying to mock you with your own birthday cake? This is the _Emerald_ Broadcasting Corporation, you know – green is our colour. But you'd better blow the candles out, quick, or the sprinklers will go off."

The green woman's eyes widened, suddenly fearful. "_Sprinklers?_"

"Yes, they're wired into the ceiling. It's part of the fire alarm system – "

"_Get out of the way!_"

Elphaba bolted for the hallway. She pushed past Pfannee, who was still holding the cake, and went sprawling over a swivel chair that had been carelessly left in the middle of the floor. Hauling herself up, she kept on running until she reached the elevator, hurled herself in, and pressed the buttons. Going down, going up – it didn't matter.

Any floor but 6.

* * *

><p>"Did you see her expression<em>?<em>" Pfannee crowed. "Oz, that was a _scream!_"

"Hysterical," Glinda said dully.

On reflection, she didn't think that it _had_ been hysterical. Yes, there had been a kick of amusement to begin with, but it was hollow. She thought of how Elphaba had gone flying as she fled the newsroom, and wondered if she had hurt herself. Was she hiding somewhere, planning revenge? Her coat was still on the desk along with her handbag, where she had left them. She couldn't have left the building. It was far too cold to be out without a jacket. Glinda listlessly tapped her pen on the surface of her desk. The scene kept replaying itself in her mind: the ambush, the black hat, the horrible cake, the fury on Elphaba's face as she realised she was the punchline of someone else's joke. Then there was her distress, so brief that Glinda thought she might have imagined it, at the mention of the fire alarm. She hadn't looked _fearless;_ she had looked scared.

Lurline, it was no good.

"I have to go down and see someone in Payroll," Glinda said to the room in general. "I'll be back in five minutes, before the meeting starts."

She slipped a Pertha Filter and her lighter into the pocket of her skirt, bypassed the elevator in the hallway, and took the stairs. She reached the third floor, where Payroll was, and kept going. Down to the second floor, where she knew far fewer people, and there was less chance of running into anyone in the ladies' room while she smoked a cigarette out of the window in the third stall.

By the time she got there, though, the desire to smoke had left her. She stood and took a hard look at herself in the mirror instead.

"Going to such lengths to taunt somebody like that," she said to herself, sternly. "What a mean playground trick. Nothing but teenage unkindness. That's not who you are."

"Who are you, then?" said a disembodied voice.

Glinda whirled round. The bathroom was empty; she had checked when she first came in. Unless somebody was hiding. Perching on the window ledge in the third stall so that their feet couldn't be seen. Perhaps, Glinda thought, she wasn't the only one who valued the second floor for its solitude.

"Miss Thropp?" she said, uncertainly.

There was a pause, and then Elphaba spoke again from behind the cubicle door. "Go away."

"Look, Miss Thropp. _Elphaba_." Informality might help convince the green woman she was sincere. "I'm really very sorry. About earlier."

"I said _go away_, Miss Upland."

"Won't you let me apologise?"

"You just did. Sufficiently."

Glinda was torn. Elphaba obviously didn't want her there, but it didn't seem right to just walk out without another word. "Are you all right? Only, it looked like you took quite a fall."

"I assure you, Miss Upland. I'm not sitting in here with a broken arm. Or a broken neck, if that's what you were hoping for."

Glinda felt her face flushing. "I was _genuinely concerned!"_

"As if your concern matters to me."

"Suit yourself, Miss Thropp. I've said I'm sorry, and I meant it. It's time for the morning meeting, so I suggest we be adults about this, put it behind us, go upstairs and get back to work."

Silence. Then: "The sprinklers," Elphaba said. Neutrally. Carefully. "Have they stopped?"

"They never started. The alarm didn't go off." A bizarre thing to ask, thought Glinda. What did that the sprinklers have to do with anything? She tried to recall the last few moments before Elphaba had made her escape, and made the connection."_That's_ what you were running away from!" she said. "But…_why?_ How could they hurt you?"

The bolt on the stall door slid back with a metallic _clink_, and Elphaba emerged. Her face was dark as thunder, her shoulders tense. Her fists were clenched tight. Glinda took an involuntary step back.

"I don't run away from anything," growled Elphaba. "I was just exiting an unfavourable situation."

"You're evading the question."

"Damn you, Miss Upland!" Elphaba snarled, taking a step forward, and Glinda stepped back again – but the hand dryers were against her back, and there was nowhere else to go. Perhaps she had pushed the green woman too far. But Elphaba seemed to decide that enough was enough, and she dropped her fists. "I have an…affliction, you might say. An adverse reaction to water."

"That's impossible," Glinda said, derisively. "Are you prone to fits of spontaneous combustion, too?"

Elphaba's eyes flashed with anger. "Very well. Here's your _evidence_." She stepped over to the sinks, wrenched one of the cold taps on, and thrust her hand quickly through the water, the way a child would run a hand through a candle flame for a dare. As she snatched her hand back, hissing, Glinda could see there was a scalded line on the skin where the water had touched it. "There, you see? The water – "

"_Burns!_" Glinda finished the sentence, shocked. "Water burns you! Oh, that must be _terrible!_" Instinctively, she reached out a hand towards the green woman (to do what, she didn't know – pat her uselessly on the arm?) but Elphaba dodged away, and Glinda felt another stab of guilt. "That stunt this morning," she said. "We would never have done it if we'd known what might happen. It wasn't meant to cause any real harm."

"Just the virtual kind?"

"People aren't like that here. They're not...vindictive. Pfannee and I – we told everyone it really _was_ your birthday. Most of them didn't know it was a set-up."

"I don't care what people are like, Miss Upland. To clarify: I don't care about people, full stop. So there's no need to trouble yourself any further. On a scale of one to ten, if one is an artichoke joke and ten is being locked in a greenhouse at midsummer and left to _humidify_, this morning's fun and games barely scored higher than a three."

"Somebody locked you in a _greenhouse?_"

"It was a long time ago," Elphaba said, irritably. "I barely remember. I only meant to use it as an example, not an excuse for you interrogate me any further."

Glinda imagined what it would be like to be trapped between the glass walls of a greenhouse, baking mercilessly in the hot sun, watching condensation roll down the panes with nothing but uncaring rows of tomato plants to hear you scream. How long would you wait for someone to come back and release you before you risked cutting yourself to shreds by smashing your way out? To be treated like that – over time, what damage might be done by _fun and games_ and playground tricks? Her face must have given her away, because Elphaba scowled.

"Save your pity, Miss Upland. I was merely making the point that such pathetic escapades don't bother me in the slightest." She produced a tiny glass bottle, no bigger than a tube of lipstick, and began unscrewing the cap.

"It's a little early for Scotch, don't you think?"

"This is _medicinal oil_, Miss Upland."

"I guessed that," said Glinda, as Elphaba dabbed the oil onto the back of her scalded hand. "I was trying to lighten the mood."

"That's funny. I think I just cracked a rib."

"Maybe if you cracked a _smile_ once in a while..." She trailed off. "Never mind. Does anyone else know about this…allergy?"

The scowl deepened. "I don't need anybody poking their nose into my concerns, do you hear me? It's got nothing to do with you."

Glinda turned and started making for the door back out to the hallway. "Right. That's it."

"What do you mean _that's it_?" said the green woman. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to the Maintenance department, _this very minute_, and I'm telling them they need to put something else in the sprinklers instead of water. There must be a world of fire-retardant liquids they could use. And before you say anything – " Glinda forestalled the wrath she could see Elphaba was about to unleash. "I'm not doing it for _you_, Miss Thropp. I'm doing it for _me_. Because I'd rather not have the fire alarm go off one day and have my work disturbed by seeing you _vapourised_ to death right across from me. I have enough nightmares as it is."

"You can't do that."

"Watch me," said Glinda, yanking the door open. Then the strangest thing happened. Elphaba _laughed_. A swooping, cackling laugh that didn't sound as if it got used very often_. _

Glinda stared at her. "I'm not joking this time."

"Forgive me, Miss Upland. But I can't work it out."

Glinda stood holding the door open, impatience battling with offence. "Can't work what out?"

"Why, the answer to the interesting question you raised when you first came in here. Who's the _real_ Glinda? The one in public, polished as a swan on a still lake, or the one who has to give herself pep talks when she thinks no-one's listening? Which facets of you are true, and which are false?"

"What's your point?" said Glinda, disconcerted by the turn things had taken. "Everyone's _complex_. You're not the only one allowed to to have a multi-dimensional personality, you know. And I don't remember saying you could use my first name."

"I don't remember saying you could call me Elphaba, either, but you did."

"I did not."

"Yes, you did."

"_When?_"

"Earlier."

"What are you, a human dictaphone?"

"I happen to have a good memory," said the green woman, complacently.

"You're doing it again! Prevaricating. Trying to confound me. Well, it's not going to work. I'm going to speak to Maintenance, and you can't stop me, _Elphaba_."

It was oddly satisfying to hurl the name back at the girl it belonged to. It was a strangely pleasant name to say, even in exasperation.

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out, _Glinda_."

Glinda tossed her head and slammed the door. Loud. Conclusive. She breathed a sigh of relief at being out in the corridor, away from Elphaba's psychoanalytics, and went off in search of the Maintenance department.


	7. Towering Inferno

After her detour to Maintenance, Glinda went back to the newsroom, expecting to find everyone already in the meeting. However, everyone was still at their desks – including Elphaba, who had made her own way back. While they had been downstairs, someone had retrieved the helium birthday balloons and tethered them to Elphaba's desk with a paperweight, where they floated optimistically above her typewriter.

"What's going on?" Glinda asked. "Why hasn't the meeting started?"

"Chuffrey's lost it," whispered Pfannee. "He's in his office, screaming at Amanda. Listen."

"…_not going to stand for this! This is MY newsroom!_" Chuffrey bellowed.

"He's yelling like that at _Morrible?_ Whatever for?"

"Beats me. But he's been bawling for ten minutes straight. It must be something really serious."

"Really serious…" Elphaba repeated idly, her attention seemingly fixed on the balloons floating above her typewriter. She reached up, and batted at one of them lightly, like a kitten batting at a toy mouse on a string. "Where would we be without your insight, Miss Pfannee?"

"…_intolerable interference in the editorial process, absolutely intolerable_…" There was a crash, as if something breakable had just been thrown across Chuffrey's room and hit the wall. It was followed by absolute silence.

The drop of a pin in the newsroom would have been deafening.

Then Chuffrey's door flew open and Amanda Morrible walked out, calm and composed as a sonata. Glinda glanced over at Elphaba, and saw she was looking at Morrible's departing figure thoughtfully – as if the senior producer was a puzzle, or an optical illusion: one of those magic eye pictures that needed to be looked at in just the right way before they revealed their true shape. Glinda recognised the look. Elphaba had looked at _her_ like that during their second-floor bust up.

Too many glances. Too many secrets. Too much was out of the normal way of things this morning. Glinda wished she could shut her eyes and open them to find it already six o'clock, and herself safe in the camera's impersonal embrace.

"What are you all waiting for?" barked Chuffrey, appearing in his office doorway. His face was red, his tie askew. The sight was almost as disquieting as his lost temper. "Conference room, ladies and gentlemen. This minute. We don't have an eternity to waste."

* * *

><p>The balloons were gone when Glinda returned from the studio at seven that evening. So was Elphaba. Glinda sighed with relief at the sight of the vacant desk.<p>

"She left," said Fiyero, passing by with papers from the photocopier. "While you were on air. She said she was done for the day."

"Oh, that's good."

"You and she don't get on with each other very well, do you?"

"I daresay we get on disastrously. But where did the balloons go?"

"She took them with her. She said she liked them. Brighten up her apartment, she said." He smiled, shy and boyish, and it reminded Glinda why all the make-up girls were so gone on him. His quiet mystique, his lack of arrogance, his catalogue good looks. The way he really _listened _when you spoke to him. He was every inch the unintentional prom king, right down to his beautifully polished, understated wingtip shoes.

"The contrary thing." She couldn't picture it. Elphaba, cutting through the rush hour crowds like a knife, three smiley-faced balloons tied to her wrist with ribbon. And _home_…where was that, for Elphaba? Under a rock? A cupboard fit for cobwebbed brooms and family skeletons? An antiseptic, new-build duplex?

"What kind of a place do you think she lives in?" she said speculatively.

"I don't know. I never really thought about it."

"I mean, it's not that I want to know where she lives. Well – not exactly. I do want to know. But I don't _want_ to want to know, if you see what I mean."

"I'm not sure if I do."

"For instance, we had a fight this morning – over nothing, really, just the birthday party." Fiyero hadn't been in the office for the party itself, and since it put her in an unflattering light, Glinda glossed over it. "But it felt so _serious._ And now I know more about her, and she thinks she knows more about _me_ – although she doesn't, not at all. She's just being presumptuous. The point is, the more I find out about her, the more I think she's either a crazy angry person, or a sad angry person, or both. And it's not _my _problem what kind of person she is, but at the same time, it bothers me, and I feel like I need a little more knowledge to be sure."

"To be sure of what?"

"Why, whether Elphaba's sad or just plain bad." She thought back to Elphaba shoving her hand under the water to prove her allergy; the act had obviously caused the green woman pain, but she had done it anyway, with such determined disregard for herself. How to explain, to Fiyero, the way this nagged at Glinda now?

She couldn't explain it. She couldn't even try.

"Most people are somewhere in between, don't you think?" he said. "I'm sure she's neither wholly one nor the other."

"That's a very diplomatic attitude."

"I learned it on the job."

"Diplomats don't believe in seeing things in black and white, is that it?"

"Something like that. But I do think differences are never as irreconcilable as they appear to be. There's always some common ground, somewhere."

"I can't think of any."

"Well. You're both very good at your work – that's a start."

Glinda couldn't argue with this. She had watched a few of Elphaba's reports by now, and there was no way around it. Elphaba _was_ good. "Now you're being _too_ diplomatic for my liking."

"I don't seem to be able to help it, I'm afraid."

"There's no need to apologise. Either Elphaba and I will learn to put up with each other eventually, or we'll push each other out of the window one day, and the whole problem will be solved. I feel better just for having talked about it." In fact she felt flattered that he had stopped to talk at all. Fiyero didn't make a habit of casual conversation.

"Are you working late?"

"No, I've had enough excitement for one day. I'm going home."

"All right, then. Good night, Glinda."

It would have been a lie to say she wasn't tempted. _Ask him out for margaritas! _Just for kicks. Not for keeps. The idea only lasted a clock-tick, though, and she knew it had more to do with the stress of the day than any attraction to Fiyero himself. For all his perfection, Glinda found that she didn't share the passion of the make-up girls. Perfection didn't seem to be turning out to be her type, judging by what had happened with all those lawyers.

Even if she _had_ liked Fiyero in that way, there was the ring on his hand to consider, and the money that went back to the Vinkus every month. He might not be married. But then again, he might. And that was a line Glinda preferred never to cross. Ever. She had seen enough of that kind of thing when she was growing up: her father's affairs, his long absences from home excused with vague references to "golf" or "business"; or her mother's, during which Larena would suddenly start wearing new clothes and perfume just to go and play bridge. These affairs would always end, and Glinda was always able to tell when they did – not that anything was ever said _openly_, of course, in accordance with respectable upper middle-class tradition. If it was her father who had been playing away, he would suddenly be much more visible around the house, drinking Bloody Marys at breakfast. If it was some dalliance of her mother's, her mother would conduct long phone calls and chain smoke in the privacy of her own room, emerging only to make random pronouncements: "_Triangles, darling. They're the worst shapes of all. They look like fun, but somebody always gets hurt. Write that down with your geometry homework."_

* * *

><p>In the space of a week, true winter settled on the Emerald City. This was Glinda's favourite time of year: it was all anthracite skies and fairy lights, the splendours of the capital gleaming bright and clean. Fine woollen gloves, pillar-box hats, new boots. The simple pleasures of coming in from the cold and getting warm, or gazing out of her window and watching the frost descend as the temperature dropped. Snow falling noiselessly, peacefully, like cherry blossom. <em>Lurlinemas<em>, yet to come.

"Isn't this weather wonderful?" Glinda said, coming back in from lunch one afternoon, too glad of heart to keep it to herself, or to care who heard it, despite the likely bitter response from Elphaba. "Doesn't it make you feel _alive?_"

Elphaba was hammering at her typewriter with a scarf swathed around her neck and a pair of black fingerless mittens on her hands. "It bites."

"Oh, I know it's cold, but it's so invigorating, don't you think? Bracing."

"If by 'bracing' you mean 'glacial.'"

"You only feel it so because you're thin as a spindle. It's simple thermodynamics. Nothing to burn. Try upping your carbohydrate intake."

Elphaba rolled her eyes. In the same instant, a piercing wail tore through the newsroom.

_The fire alarm_.

The sprinklers went off above their desks.

Elphaba ducked, too late.

"Great," yelled the Legal Correspondent over the ear-piercing alarm. "That's just great. Now all my stuff's covered in _foam_. What idiot tried to make waffles in the toaster _again_? Things are against the rules for a reason!"

Glinda looked over at Elphaba, who was patting herself carefully. Checking for damage and finding…none.

"Why, Miss Elphaba. You're still here."

Brown eyes met hers, steadily. "That's interesting."

"_Isn't_ it, though? Maintenance must have changed the sprinkler system. I can't think why they would have done that."

Chuffrey came out of his office, wearing a fluorescent sash emblazoned with the words _Fire Marshal_. "Come along, everyone. This isn't a drill. Proceed to the assembly point outside in an orderly fashion. Don't take the elevator, please. Stairs only."

"I'll pretend you said _thank you_, shall I?" Glinda said as they started heading for the stairway along with the others. "For my having practically saved your life."

"Knock yourself out. Paint a mental picture."

"I don't consider that an adequate expression of gratitude."

"Keep moving, will you? If there's a real fire I'll be charred to cinders waiting for you to stop blocking the stairs. I was quite capable of talking to Maintenance myself, once I knew about the sprinklers."

"But you didn't."

"Because _you_ said you were going to. No point in sending a delegation."

"But you had no way of knowing whether I really did or not – unless you went and asked them later."

"I trusted you," Elphaba said simply. "Should I not have? You don't strike me as a double-crosser, though you might stoop to the level of juvenile mockery now and then."

They were outside now; the evacuated staff were milling about on the pavement opposite the EBC1 building as the fire marshals from each floor tried to take roll calls and tick names off their lists. There was no sign of any fire, but since it wasn't a drill they had to wait for a fire crew to arrive and check the place over.

Elphaba folded her arms and hunched her shoulders, bouncing agitatedly from one foot to the other. "Unnamed God. I should have taken my chances with the towering inferno."

"What you _should_ have done is bring your coat. Like I did."

"I didn't think we were going to have to stand out here all day."

"It's been two minutes."

"Yes, but how much longer will we loiter in this frozen wasteland before they let us back in?"

"Do you ever stop complaining?" Glinda started yanking her coat off. "Here. Take my coat, for Lurline's sake."

"I will do no such thing."

"It's not _real fur_, if that's what's bothering you. It's one-hundred percent acrylic."

"I didn't think it _was_ real, you silly girl. I can't take your coat because then you'll be cold. It's my own fault. I shall just have to put up with it."

It was easy to miss, between _you silly girl_ and the uncharacteristic admission of _my own fault_, but Glinda heard it. Consideration, thoughtfulness: _Elphaba didn't want her to get cold_. She was getting wise to the way Elphaba spoke: in among her twists and sarcastic turns were real sentiments, like gems in rock. The green woman made them deliberately difficult to find. Was it just a tactic, a way of making sure people didn't look too close, or listen too carefully?

"Stubborn monster," Glinda said, but she took care to say it without meanness.

"Thank you."

Glinda blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"I think you heard me competently the first time. No rewinds."

"Was that _thank you_ for calling you a stubborn monster, or _thank you _for getting the water switched out of the sprinklers?"

"You choose."

"You never let on when you're being serious, do you? The effect is quite exhausting."

"You have foam in your hair," was the answering observation. "The effect is quite ridiculous."

"Oh, do I?" It wasn't only that Elphaba spoke in such a chopped-up way. Glinda felt _herself_ chopping and changing in response. Repulsion switched to curiosity, curiosity switched to impatience, impatience switched to annoyance...it was making her feel like a remote control with faulty batteries. "Well, you have foam in _your _hair. You look like a fright."

Elphaba's hair was tied back in a braid, the way she always wore it to work. Glinda couldn't remember whether it had been down the night they met at the Crystal Plaza – the _greenness_ had taken up most of her attention at the time. She certainly couldn't remember noticing, as she did now seeing Elphaba let her hair down and shake it out, _tsking_ with annoyance, how very striking it was. Avaric had been right all along, with his film-school dropout claptrap about _presence_. Elphaba _did _have it. She _was _captivating to look at. Not just on screen, either.

_Switch_. Envy.

_Switch_. Appreciation of externalities of form.

But she had made the mistake of giving Avaric mental space – think of the devil, and the devil saunters over.

"Look at you two," he said. "Shooting the breeze. Almost like friends."

"We're not friends," Elphaba said mildly.

"I second _that_ emotion," said Glinda.

"Have you considered any conflict resolution techniques? An intermediary body to help defuse the tension, or whatever it is you have going on here? Think about it. I could _be _that body."

"Keep talking, Mr Tenmeadows, and you could be a body in the morgue."

"Don't engage with him," said Glinda. "Ignore him. He'll get bored and go away."

"There's nothing boring about a gorgeous blonde and a botanical mutant." Avaric said, just as the fire engines rounded the corner of the street, sirens blaring, and pulled up outside the building. "Ah, the cavalry's here. I'll have to leave you to your own devices while I go and find out what's happening. I left my handmade designer sunglasses in there. Quality goods, you know. You can't be too careful."

"I hope his sunglasses have combusted," Glinda said as he hurried off. "Although I don't think there _is_ any fire. It must have been a false alarm, or a spark in the wiring."

"Then let's hope that a fireman treads on them while they're checking the place over," said Elphaba, and smiled a little smile, turning up one corner of her mouth. It was a smile of private mirth, but Glinda understood it was meant to include her. Not to shut her out.

She couldn't help but look down at the pavement beneath their feet, to check it was still conventional concrete.

Because, all of a sudden, it felt a lot like common ground.


	8. Situational Awareness

"Hold the elevator!" called Glinda, dashing into the hallway. She had stayed on after the six o'clock news, longer than she had planned to, and now it was almost eight.

A mittened hand stopped the doors from closing. "Thank you," said Glinda, out of breath. Then, seeing who the hand belonged to: "Oh. You're back."

"Evidently," said Elphaba. She had been away on assignment in Munchkinland, filming a special report at the Munchkinland Institute of Technology, and hadn't been in the office for two days.

It had been restful.

"I didn't see you in the newsroom."

"Perhaps you blinked, and missed me. I only came in this minute. I had to give the film to Editing, for the ten o' clock bulletin."

"How was your trip?"

The Thropp estate was at Colwen Grounds in Munchkinland, Glinda knew, although Elphaba had never once referred to it – or to her family, for that matter. Could she really have gone all that way without visiting home, or seeing her sister? The sister she acted like she didn't even have. The _Metropolis Today_ had run a story about Nessarose, not that long ago. "_Holy Sober!" _the headline had raved. _"Nessarose Thropp: Exclusive! How She Found the Unnamed God In Rehab and Swapped Bar Hopping For Church."_ Glinda hadn't read it. She had just happened to see it lying around somewhere.

"It was fine," said Elphaba.

"_That_ good. My Oz."

"I'm not your personal correspondent. If you want the inside scoop, you can watch the report when it airs later."

"Maybe I will."

The elevator rattled its way down to the ground floor.

"Good night," said Elphaba curtly, as they left the building.

"Good night," Glinda said.

Some things in life never stop being awkward. The cash-desk discovery of the forgotten purse. Trying to push open a door marked 'Pull'. Mistaking a complete stranger in the street for an acquaintance and waving hello, then getting blanked. Harsh.

And the all-time classic: saying goodbye, then finding out that instead of taking a separate path the other person is going in the _same direction_ _as you are_.

"Stop following me."

"As _if _that's what I'm doing," said Glinda indignantly. "I'm going to the train station, which is _this way_. What's your excuse?"

"I'm going home. This is the route I always take. I can walk where I like."

"So can I."

"I'm not saying you can't."

"That's generous of you."

"I have an idea," said Elphaba. "You stay on this side of the street, I'll walk on the opposite side, and we can pretend this isn't happening."

Her face was stony. But the corner of her mouth was turned up, ever so slightly.

"You're joking."

"I assure you, I am not."

"I can _tell_ you're joking because you're _smiling_."

"I don't smile."

"Yes, you do. You do that sneaky thing with your mouth."

"Rubbish."

"You think you're so sly, but I'm a fast learner. Nothing gets past me," said Glinda. "Eventually."

Elphaba's face was all stone now, the mouth set in a firm line.

"Oh, come _on_, rocky road. You're _allowed_ to smile, for Ev's sake!"

"I don't need your permission to screw up my face and show my teeth."

This was getting them nowhere. Literally. They were still standing outside the revolving doors of Television Centre.

"I have a train to catch," said Glinda. She started walking. "You can cross over if you like. Walk on your own. It makes no difference to me."

She half-expected Elphaba to stomp off, and she more than half wished that the green woman would. But she felt gratified when Elphaba didn't. Glinda liked to think of herself as a hard person to walk away from. Most people seemed to find her so. Elphaba, however, wasn't _most people_. Elphaba gave the impression she could turn her back on all the rubies of the southern mines, without a second thought.

She caught up with Glinda in a handful of steps (those long legs; she really was catwalk tall).

"Very well, then," she said impassively. "Since it makes no difference."

The city gritters had scattered salt on the ground to stop ice forming on the pavements and road, and it crunched loudly underneath their feet. They didn't speak. Glinda wasn't used to walking with someone for so long without talking. The silence, she was surprised to find, wasn't wholly uncomfortable, but she felt compelled to break it all the same.

"Do you live in the centre of town?"

"I live…in this general vicinity," Elphaba replied, guardedly.

"Could you clam up any quicker? I wasn't asking for your address and postcode. I'm not planning on dropping by unannounced one day with a pineapple upside-down cake and a jigsaw puzzle. I was just making conversation."

"We don't have to converse."

Glinda was stung. _Should have seen that coming_. "Oh. I get it. Conversation bores you. I'll shut up."

"What I meant was," said Elphaba, "you don't have to make an effort to make small talk on my account. I don't expect you to manufacture polite nothings if you prefer not to. Perambulation in perfect silence is perfectly acceptable."

"Who's talking now? _I'm _quite happy to maintain a deathly hush."

They had reached Prospect Square, the great expanse of public space overlooked by the Palace. The sprawling, imposing façade of the Palace, bathed in the glow of the great row of floodlights outside its walls, and the marbled square itself, full of people enjoying the Lurlinemas fair, proclaimed the wealth and spectacle of the capital – the viridian jewel in the crown of all Oz. The sight of it made Glinda give up on her grave commitment to quietness.

"The square looks so handsome, lit up," she sighed.

"It's pretty enough," said Elphaba, perfunctorily. "For a piece of ground."

"But it's not just a piece of ground." This was something Glinda had thought about a lot, every time she crossed Prospect Square. Ever since she had moved to the Emerald City, and had begun to reconstruct herself as a city girl, accommodating herself to its dangers and its thrills, its skylines, streets, and surfaces. "It's a _place_."

"What's the difference?"

"A place has an aura – a symbolic value. When you walk through Prospect Square, you're at the very _heart_ of things. Geographically, of course, but also at a socio-political level." She motioned to the Palace at the far end of the square. "There's the Palace, over there. That represents the rule of government. The power of the Wizard, and the Ministries…but the square…" She spread her arms out wide. "The square represents the _people_ of Oz – all of us. It's designed to signify the power of the citizenry. Do you see?" she asked, excitedly. "Places have _meaning_. You can read the built environment like a book."

Elphaba had stopped walking and was staring at her. Glinda told herself she ought to have known better. She had once made the mistake of getting carried away and trying to share her thoughts on urban planning with some guy she had been going out with. He hadn't been that into it, either.

"What. _What_."

"Nothing," said Elphaba, frowning.

"What are you looking at me like that for?"

"No reason."

"I don't see what's so bananas about taking an interest in the arrangement of buildings in space. A little situational awareness, that's all it is."

"Hm." Elphaba's eyebrows were still drawn down in a frown. She was no longer looking at Glinda, but was surveying the square around them. "That's…very interesting. The built environment, like a book…I can't say I've ever thought of it that way."

_You mean you _haven't_ thought of everything there ever was, and ever will be? _Glinda had the crushing put-down ready. But she didn't deliver it. For reasons unknown, Elphaba appeared to be taking her seriously. It felt wrong to be snide about it.

"You say the square symbolises popular power," Elphaba said. "How much power, in your opinion, do we have?"

"We _do_ live in a representative democracy, don't we?" Glinda replied. "If you don't count the Wizard, who isn't elected...but architecture is all about representation. The promotion of ideals. It doesn't necessarily translate to the level of social reality."

"Representation. Ideals...I understand." Elphaba was looking around, her dark eyes taking everything in. "No litter," she said. "I don't see any street souls, either. I expect the Guards move them on."

There had always been a homeless population living on the streets of the city, but this had visibly increased over the past year. Old and young, men and women, Animals and people…huddled in blankets, or old sleeping bags, or sometimes sitting only in their clothes on the hard ground with their backs against rubbish bins or brick walls. Occasionally Glinda would tip a few coins, or a note, into a filthy polystyrene cup or upturned cap. Other times she just walked on by, because giving money almost made her feel worse than doing nothing. The whispered _thank you_, barely audible. _Have a nice day, lady. Bless you._ Gratitude she didn't deserve, for giving so little when she had so much. She never could bring herself to make eye contact, or to exchange a few words as she passed, partly out of shame and partly because she was scared - of the grime, the aura of destitution around them. This version of herself disappointed her, and so she turned her head, and pretended not to see.

"You're right," was all she could say to Elphaba now.

"No graffiti," the green woman went on. "A _pristine_ prospect. Strung with lights and filled with carousels and candy-floss stalls." She held up her hands and made a makeshift frame between them, capturing the scene: families with children who had come to see the lights; young professionals, like Glinda and Elphaba, on their way elsewhere; late-night shoppers, laden with carrier bags and gift-wrapped packages; couples on the temporary ice-rink. There was the scent of gingerbread and saffron and hot apple cider. "The picture's all wrong. Look. No recession. No unemployment. No corruption. No protests. No_ problems_. It's like looking at a mask."

"That's why we do what we do, isn't it?" Glinda said.

Elphaba looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"News work, of course. It's our job to look _behind_ the mask. Tell both sides of every story."

"Telling stories – is that what you think journalism means?" She sounded contemptuous.

"No," said Glinda. "It means telling the _truth_. As close to it as you can possibly get." How had they got here? They had gone from not talking at all to doing sixty miles per hour on the road to Abstraction. Now would be a good time to put on the brakes – as soon as she finished making her case. "The difficulty is – at least, to me – the difficulty is knowing how to tell the real truth from a mere story in the first place. How to _distinguish _the truth, before you can tell it to anyone else."

Another "Hmm."

"Don't you have anything to say?" said Glinda, irritated by the lack of response. "Aren't you going to tell me I'm wrong?"

"No. I think you're right."

"You're _agreeing_ with me?"

"Yes," Elphaba said.

Glinda studied her face, but there were no clues. "Forgive me, but I thought your philosophy of journalism was rather different. According to you, we're all – what was it? Hacks, liars and cheats."

"You forgot frauds and fakes."

Glinda smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead. "Ludicrous me."

"I see no reason why the two views need not converge. A fraud may be honest; a cheat may play fair; the best of us may be bought."

"I didn't get a chance to ask which one _you_ are."

"All of them," said Elphaba, untroubled.

"You're not a hack, and you know it. You don't fit the bill." Glinda had worked with plenty of hack journalists. They were easy to recognise. Hacks didn't care what they wrote, or what they said, as long as they got paid. Often it was because they had no choice; they hadn't been good enough, fortunate enough, or driven enough, and had ended up as gunslingers for hire.

"Why not?"

"You've got the cynicism on lock, and you seem to hate everything, so that takes care of the misanthropy. But you're simply not old enough. You need to be at least thirty-five, with enough broken dreams to fill a suitcase, before they send you your hack pass."

Elphaba didn't laugh, and she didn't smile. But she seemed…entertained. "Only a decade to wait."

Glinda felt the push-pull feeling she had tried to describe to Fiyero: _and which do you think _I _am? _she wanted to ask. But she also wanted not to care about what Elphaba thought, or the workings of her mind – a mind that was revealing itself to be as precise and calibrated as a perpetual clock, and lethal as a buzz-saw.

Curiosity won. "And what category do I come under, in your infallible judgement?"

"I don't know," Elphaba said. She sounded quite taken with her own uncertainty. As if it was some small, enchanting thing she had come across in a junk shop. "I don't know you at all."

* * *

><p><em>I don't know you at all..<em>.Glinda hadn't been able to think of a single thing to say to _that_. She had been relieved when Elphaba had turned off down another street not long after they crossed the edge of the square, leaving her to walk the rest of the way alone. But when she got home she found that she couldn't unwind, and sat channel-hopping until the ten o'clock news came on.

Watching Chuffrey read out the headlines, Glinda found herself thinking that he was looking..._old_. No-one had managed to find out what was behind his row with Morrible. Whatever their quarrel had been, it must have been patched up; Chuffrey and the senior producer behaved as politely and respectfully towards each other as they had always done. Chuffrey himself, though, seemed to have less get-up-and-go about him. He was less equable, too. He had even started to snap at people in the newsroom.

"And now," he was announcing from her TV set, "we have a special report from our Discontent Correspondent, Elphaba Thropp, who has been investigating recent events at the Munchkinland Institute of Technology."

The screen cut to Elphaba's report, which began with her standing in a room filled with rows of computers and other unidentifiable equipment.

"This is the Future Research department, here at the Munchkinland Institute of Technology," she said. "Students and researchers in this lab work at the cutting edge of science. But now the Future Research laboratory is at the cutting edge of conflict – a conflict that is emblematic of the ongoing dispute between the government and young people in higher education across Oz."

"Earlier this week," she continued, "students barricaded the department doors and prevented work from continuing for several days. Most of the students involved have been dismissed from their degree programmes. I spoke to the Research Director, Professor Pip Randle, and asked him for his take."

There was a jump-cut to the Research Director's office. Professor Randle turned out to be a portly, middle-aged man with a plaid jacket and a comb-over.

"Professor Randle," Elphaba said. "Thank you for talking to me today. Tell me – as Research Director, how much input did you have into the disciplinary action against the students?"

"I chaired the disciplinary committee myself."

"These dismissals mean that the students are barred from the Institute for life, is that right?"

"That's correct. If they want to complete their education, they'll have to re-apply elsewhere – although it's doubtful whether other schools will accept them."

"Is that fair?" Elphaba's voice was oddly bland. Unthreatening. She wasn't challenging him; she was setting up so he could _justify_ the dismissals.

_What are you playing at, you shady operator? _thought Glinda.

The Professor didn't hesitate. "It's my view that we need to send a message to young people that this kind of thing won't be tolerated," he said emphatically. "At the Institute, and in the other universities. They need to know that their actions have real consequences that can affect their futures." He grinned. "If you'll pardon the pun."

"Ha, ha." Elphaba laughed like she was at an afternoon tea party.

It was an unnerving sight. Glinda didn't want to be around next time Elphaba brought out her china-plate laugh and accompanying face.

Randle wasn't finished. "I also feel, as a concerned citizen, that the government could be doing more to discourage similar sorts of anti-social and criminal behaviour among the student population. I mean, taxpayers don't want to see their money being used to subsidise grants for layabouts and saboteurs. I'm a taxpayer myself."

Elphaba nodded, as if she was in firm agreement. "You used the phrase 'criminal behaviour', I notice. Is there no way this could be considered as an act of political protest?"

The camera focused in closer on Professor Randle as he shook his head.

"There's no justification. No political dimension. It was mindless disruption."

"Professor, would you say that in order to be accepted to study here, prospective students have to meet high intellectual standards?"

He looked puzzled by the change in tack. "The admission requirements are rigorous, yes."

"I have the Institute's prospectus here…let me see…" She consulted a glossy booklet, and quoted from it. "_We believe our graduates are the best minds of their generation. _Would you say that having a good mind is essential to getting into the Institute in the place?"

"Undoubtedly."

"So how," Elphaba said, with primary school innocence, "could such bright young women, young men, and young Animals end up doing something so _mindless_, as you say? So utterly without meaning, or message. It's hard to believe there's nothing behind it – nothing they were trying to say through their actions."

The Professor looked confused. "No, that's not – "

"You're saying that the Institute has _low_ admission standards?"

"That is – no, _no_. No. That's definitely not what I said."

"Thank you for clarifying that," Elphaba said, soothingly.

Glinda knew then what Elphaba was up to. She had given the Professor enough rope – and now she was letting him tie himself up with it.

"There are just a few final questions I'd like to ask, if I may."

"Please, continue," he said, with another grin – forced, this time.

"Before you took up your present – very prestigious – post as Research Director, you were a lecturer here, is that right?"

"Yes, I was."

"You became Research Director when your predecessor was fired from his job under the Animal Banns."

"What's that got to do with anything? It's a matter of public record that my predecessor was released from his contract. Someone had to step in, and keep the department running."

"You were in favour of permanent dismissal in those days too, weren't you Professor Randle? For faculty members, as well as students."

Professor Randle was gripping the arms of his chair. "That's not relevant. It was highly unfortunate, and the Institute would have reinstated the previous Research Director, of course, if he hadn't – "

"If he hadn't had a nervous breakdown."

"That's all in the past," he said angrily. "It's over and done with."

"Just like this interview," Elphaba said. "We've taken up enough of your valuable time. Thank you again for speaking to me, Professor Randle."

Credit where credit was due: it was a textbook stitch-up interview. Reluctantly Glinda gave in to admiration. _Very smart, _she thought_. B__ut you probably only got that good by practicing on anyone who happens to speak to you.._. _  
><em>

The screen cut to Elphaba with several of the students – Glinda supposed it must be somewhere off-campus. The students were dressed in the scruffy trends of the counter-culture, but they had the shine of youth still about them. To Glinda, watching from the wrong side of twenty-five, they looked like new pennies.

"We're filming this for EBC1 news," Elphaba was telling the group. "If you want to explain yourselves to a national audience, now's your chance."

"We're not vandals," said one of them, a Fox.

"We're not criminals," a girl chimed in.

"What's your motivation?" Elphaba asked. "What did you think you were going to achieve by blocking off the lab?"

"Attention," said the same girl.

"Is this the kind of attention you hoped for?" said Elphaba. "Getting barred from your studies? Having your grants withdrawn? People thinking you're nothing but spoilt, over-privileged children?"

"We wanted to do something," said an earnest Munchkin boy. "To be heard." He paused. "We didn't do anything violent, or cause anybody any harm. We just thought…what's the point of Future Research, when there's no future for us when we leave here?"

Elphaba let that remark stand for a couple of seconds, giving it time to have an impact on the viewers who would see the footage later. Then she followed it up.

"What do you mean when you say 'no future'?"

"There's no work for us," said the Fox.

"No jobs," said the Munchkin boy.

"The way things are going," said the girl, "all that's waiting for us after we graduate is life on the dole. We just want a _chance_. It's not that much to ask. If the government spent more money on social programmes and job creation, and less money on lining their pockets, or paying off private contractors who keep messing up the Yellow Brick Road, or drilling for oil until Dixxi falls into a sinkhole, or building bombs that we don't need. Sorry – " The girl corrected herself. _"_I mean a - "

_KSHHHHHH _

The picture on the screen was ripped apart by static.

"Oz damn," Glinda swore out loud. "Piece of junk set – I _paid_ enough…" She got up and banged the top of the television. A clock tick later, the picture came back – not Elphaba in Munchkinland, but Chuffrey in the studio.

"We do apologise," he said solemnly. "Due to technical difficulties, we are unable to bring you the rest of that special report this evening. Turning to tonight's other news, now…"

_Technical difficulties?_ There were never any technical difficulties at EBC1. Amanda would be on the warpath. Everyone in Production better hope it was someone in Editing's fault. Whoever ended up taking the rap, they could at least be consoled with the thought that even Amanda wouldn't give someone the sack so close to Lurlinemas.

Glinda stifled a yawn, turned out the lights in the living room, and went through to the bathroom to start taking her make-up off.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thank you again to everyone who is reading and thank you for your patience over the slower pace of updates recently. Sometimes it's so difficult to get the story to move to where it's supposed to be going, but from now on chapters should be ready every fortnight or so. Happy Lurlinemas!  
><strong>


	9. The Map of the Known

"You're leaving?"

Glinda was trying to put her desk in order for the night when she noticed Elphaba putting on her coat, and shouldering her handbag.

"That's what it looks like," Elphaba said.

"I was just about to leave too."

The green woman shrugged. "I'm not stopping you. We work in the same office. It's not against the mathematical laws of probability that we occasionally leave the premises at the same time."

They didn't speak in the elevator. Elphaba just stood there, still and self-contained. Glinda fidgeted with her powder compact.

"Are you walking this way again?" she said, when they were out on the street.

"Yes, but I have another idea that will save us from having to share the pavement. You go on ahead, I'll walk ten paces behind you, and neither of us need put up with the other. Or _you_ can walk ten paces behind, if you like. Don't say I'm not generous."

Which would be worse: having to walk all that way knowing Elphaba was following behind her like a private investigator, or tailing after Elphaba, like a reject?

Both. Both of those options would be the worst.

"I believe," Glinda said, cautiously, "that I can tolerate your company."

"Very well then," the green woman said. "If _I_ can be tolerated, _you _can doubtless be endured. Let's go."

She strode off, one end of her scarf whipping loose in the wind, and it was Glinda's turn to catch up.

"I saw your report last night."

"No, you didn't," Elphaba said flatly.

"I think I know what I watched on my own _television_ – "

"Nobody saw it. You were the one talking about whole stories yesterday, weren't you? You only saw part of the report. It got cut off before the end."

"Technical difficulties…Yes, that was unusual," Glinda acknowledged. "I've been trying to think what it could have been."

"The film. It was damaged. When they played it last night, it chewed itself up. The last five minutes were wiped."

"Damaged_?_ How_?_"

"A minor accident during broadcast."

"Chuffrey told you that?"

"This morning," Elphaba said. "He spoke to me, after the meeting. He was most _apologetic_."

"You don't sound convinced."

"I am not."

"What other explanation is there?"

"The ending was certainly wiped; I got someone in Editing to run it for me this afternoon. But I don't know. Something about it feels...purposeful."

"You think it _wasn't_ an accident?" said Glinda. "Why would someone damage the film deliberately?"

Elphaba didn't miss a beat. "Because there was something in there that they didn't want going out on the air."

Maybe she _did_ have a screw loose somewhere in that mind of hers, thought Glinda. A ghost, in the machine.

"That's crazy."

"I was stating my own opinion, not asking for yours."

"You can't say something like that and expect me _not_ to comment! If you're really that paranoid, maybe you should go talk to Fiyero – he's supposed to be our resident spy."

"Who says that?" Elphaba said, sharply.

"Calm down," said Glinda, slightly taken aback by her reaction. "It's just a joke that went around the office a while ago. I thought _you_ of all people would be able to recognise sarcasm."

"A joke? Who started it?"

"I don't even remember. It doesn't matter. It's not true. It's delusional – along with the idea that someone scrapped the last five minutes of your report on purpose."

"Oh, I don't think it's so very far-fetched. When you're like _me_, Miss Upland, it's difficult to see anything as being outside the realms of possibility." She tapped her chest lightly. "I'm living proof. I'm the undreamt-of, made real."

That was true. Who would ever have conjured such a creature in their dreams? Who would have believed she could exist? Yet here she was. A living anomaly.

Astonishing, really.

But Elphaba was proof of _herself_ – nothing more.

"Let's get rational," Glinda said. "It was an interesting report – I don't mind saying it – but I hardly think it was incendiary. There was nothing in there that most people don't already know. So why in Oz would anybody bother to meddle with it?"

Elphaba frowned. "That, I confess, is what troubles me most of all. If there _was_ something, I didn't see it at the time."

"And now you can't see it, because the film is destroyed."

They were approaching the ice rink in the square. The sound of the skaters' blades, their turns and glides, carried on the thin winter air.

"Thank you for stating the obvious. All I have to go on is my shorthand notes, but they're not very extensive."

"Wasn't Avaric there?"

"It's no use asking _him_."

"What about your dictaphonic memory?"

"That's of little assistance when I don't know what it is that I'm trying to remember," Elphaba said irritably.

"Don't think about it, and it'll come back to you," counselled Glinda. "It might help if we changed the subject. Preferably to something other than sabotage."

Abruptly, Elphaba obliged. "I should like to try that, one day."

"Try what? _Sabotage?"_

"Life is short. Why not? But really I meant the dance of the razor-heeled fairies over there." She gestured extravagantly towards the ice rink.

"But the ice – " Glinda was blind-sided again."I mean, ice is water. You don't – have a problem with it?"

"Not unless it melts. But this rink is artificial. The ice won't melt all of a sudden, and it's not going to crack. Even if it did, there's nothing under there but concrete and coolant pipes." Her voice took on a darker tone. "No rushing river to pull a person under. No dank, depthless lake, the water so cold it stops your heart before it drowns you…" She brightened. "Of course, _I_ wouldn't have to worry about the temperature."

Glinda shivered. "Stop it, would you? That's not funny."

"Don't you like ice pursuits?"

"Not especially."

"Fascinating. I thought you were quite the snow Leopard, going on every day about how enamoured you are with the delights of winter."

"Winter has its dangers."

"Such as?"

"All those people, whooshing around on the ice – they're enjoying themselves _now_, but they won't be laughing when somebody dislocates a knee, or loses an eye."

"I see," said Elphaba, her low voice sympathetic. Consolatory. "Forgive me for asking – but which is which? I really can't tell the difference."

"Which is which what?"

"Why, which one is your glass eye, of course. It's remarkable – I didn't know you could get them to look so realistic."

"I don't have a _glass eye!_" shrieked Glinda.

"In that case, do excuse me. Your antipathy to the ice – I assumed you were speaking from personal experience."

"It wasn't my _eye, _you idiot! It was my – " She stopped herself. "_Ev and blast!_ Nobody's allowed to ask _you_ anything about _your _life – hardly anything. Oh no, that's _prying_ – but when it comes to other people, you go around making them _tell _you things before they even realise they're doing it, like some kind of – some kind of _emotional_ _pickpocket! _If you want to ask me something, just _ask!_ Maybe I'll tell you, maybe I won't, but don't try and _hoodwink_ answers out of me – like you did with that professor."

"I'm not a thief," the green woman said sullenly.

"I'll give you another chance, shall I? Go on. Try it. Ask me why I don't like the ice."

Elphaba said nothing.

"Going for the silent approach, are you?"

"_Why don't you like the ice? _Not that I care."

Score one to Upland.

"Since you asked so politely…"

"Get on with it, would you."

"I used to love ice skating. Every year the pond in Frottica froze, and I would go out with all my friends. Then I fell over on the ice when I was fifteen, and broke my nose."

Elphaba snorted. "That's the exclusive – you tumbled over once, years ago? Stop the presses."

"It was _extremely_ traumatic, I'll have you know. I had to have my nose re-set." Unconsciously, she touched the bridge of her nose. "My mother nearly had an apoplexy. She blamed my father. They had a _blazing _row in the emergency room. That was the only time I saw them shout at each other."

"Your father tripped you up, did he?"

"No, he did not," said Glinda. "It was because of my new skates. They didn't fit properly, but I pretended they did, because they had rhinestones on them, and I wanted them more than anything. Anyway – I always could wrap my father round my little finger. He bought me the skates, and that's how I found out that it doesn't pay to play on the ice in ill-fitting, tacky footwear."

"You're very lucky."

"_Lucky? _You think that's _lucky?_"

"Abundantly so," said Elphaba casually. "Not all imperfections can be corrected with such ease."

_Tactless, _Glinda berated herself. _That was tactless. _She couldn't be sure whether Elphaba was referring to herself – to her greenness, or her odd allergy. Did she see her complexion as an imperfection?

Something compelled Glinda to try and explain herself better. She didn't want Elphaba to think she was conceited.

"I know they can't," she began. "I know I sound vain." She paused. "I _am_ vain." _Try harder_. "Being _me_, though…" She hesitated. "How can I put it?" Elphaba seemed to be listening, her face impassive. "Vanity helps me along. It always has. I find that I have to keep a little of it about me, along with my wits. Otherwise…I don't think I would have the nerve to get behind the anchor desk every day. Or to do anything, much."

"Self-obsessed _and_ self-aware," Elphaba said. "Another exclusive."

"I was trying to tell you something_ about myself!_"

"I never asked you to."

"That's how we got into this mess in the first place," said Glinda angrily.

Yesterday, this evening…why couldn't she stop over-sharing? It kept happening, regardless of whether Elphaba asked her a direct question, or tricked her, or did nothing whatsoever except _be_ there.

The smile-that-wasn't-a-smile appeared on Elphaba's face.

"What are you smirking about now?"

"I was only thinking – your misfortune on the ice. It reminds me of the great Empress of the Delta."

"What are you talking about? What delta? I never heard of any such empress."

"Not many people have. She lived a long time ago, in another place."

"Is there a point to any of this?"

Elphaba carried on, cryptic as a crossword clue. "The ancient Deltonic poets wrote odes to her beauty. They wrote that, had the _nose _of the Empress only been shorter, the whole face of history would have been altered."

Glinda felt her face flushing with indignation. "Are you making fun of me?"

"I'm saying you have a very pretty nose," said Elphaba. "Even if it's not the original version."

Then she winked. Highly effectively. Like a flying ace (first class), or a cinema daredevil.

Glinda tried to be cross. She tried to be outraged.

She only succeeded in being all-round, upside-down _flattered_.

It took her the whole rest of the way home to shake it off.

* * *

><p>Over the next few days, she managed to avoid leaving the office at the same time as Elphaba. She got the impression that Elphaba, too, was trying to minimise the mathematical probability of lightning striking thrice. She worked increasingly late, and Glinda was long gone by the time Elphaba presumably went home. At their desks, they limited their exchanges to essential administrative updates.<p>

On Tuesday, for example:

"Could you make a little less noise over there?"

Elphaba was furiously searching through the pile of notebooks and folders and sheets of paper on her desk, sending pens and paperclips flying. "Did you move any of my papers?"

"I wouldn't dare touch anything on your desk. I don't know how you can find anything in that chaos. It looks like a bomb hit it."

Elphaba looked up. "What did you say?"

"I said, your desk is a mess."

"Hm."

"The cleaners move things sometimes, overnight."

"I'm sure that's what's happened, then." Elphaba scribbled something down on another piece of paper, which she folded up and put in the pocket of her black cardigan, before she seemed to lose interest entirely in whatever it was she had been looking for and went back to assaulting her typewriter.

* * *

><p>Thursday afternoon:<p>

"Someone called for you while you were at lunch."

"You didn't have to answer my phone."

"It was ringing," Elphaba said, biting into an apple. "It was giving me a migraine."

"Did you get their name and number?"

"I put a sticky note on your desk."

Glinda peered at the scrawl. "I can't read this. Is this a foreign alphabet?"

"Aspersions on _my _handwriting, coming from someone who writes like a primary school teacher chalking on a blackboard to an assembly of infants?"

"This note looks like a bird got drunk, took a bath in a muddy puddle, then walked across the paper."

"Hire a secretary. Cry me a river. Disconnect your phone."

* * *

><p>They did seem to end up sitting next to each other in the morning meeting nearly every day. But that was fine. That wasn't a social situation. And it meant that Glinda got to observe Elphaba's reaction when Chuffrey produced the Secret Lurline box, on Friday.<p>

"For our last agenda item today," said Chuffrey, his eyes twinkling, "we have a surprise." He motioned to the junior Arts correspondent sitting beside him, who disappeared under the table before jumping back up with a medium-sized cardboard box which she handed to Chuffrey, who placed it on the table before him. "Thank you, my dear."

"What's in that box?" Elphaba whispered fiercely.

"Hush," said Glinda. "You'll find out."

"That's right, everyone!" Chuffrey said, jovially patting the sides of the box. "It's time for the annual Secret Lurline allocations."

"What allocations?" whispered Elphaba. "What's a Secret Lurline?"

"You're going to _love_ this."

"The box will be making its way around the newsroom later," boomed Chuffrey. "Remember – when you get your envelope, keep it to yourself. You must not tell anyone else who your beneficiary is, and you must buy a gift for that beneficiary only. No swapping. No cheating. No over-spending, or under-spending. And please – " He looked pointedly over his spectacles at them. "Keep it clean. I will be speaking to certain individuals separately to reinforce this point – "

Almost everyone in the room knew that he meant Avaric.

" – but I know you will all be anxious to bear it in mind."

Glinda glanced sideways at Elphaba. The green woman had a tight, stricken look on her face.

"What cruelty is this?" she hissed.

"Team-building," Glinda whispered, blithely. "Festive edition. Didn't you ever play Secret Lurline before?"

"If I had, I would know what it was, wouldn't I?"

Glinda relented. "Everyone takes an envelope out of the box," she explained. "The envelopes have names in them. There's a little cash, too – Chuffrey takes it out of the budget, instead of a bonus. You have to use the money in the envelope to buy a Lurlinemas present for the person whose name you end up with. But you can't tell anyone who you're buying for. So everyone is someone else's _Secret Lurline_! Do you get it?"

Elphaba slumped in her chair. "Why," she whispered hoarsely. "Why are people so - "

"Miss Thropp," called Chuffrey. "Is something wrong?"

Elphaba sat up straight. "No."

Chuffrey patted the box again. "Capital," he said cheerfully. "This is going to be capital! I'm looking forward to seeing what you all come up with this year. Now, let's go out there and get on with the day."

"Capital punishment, more like," Elphaba muttered.

"Don't exaggerate," said Glinda. "It's work-sanctioned shopping. You'll get a half-day off to go and buy your present. And yes, I'm sure you _detest_ presents – the way you seem to detest everything else. But the whole idea of Secret Lurline is that you're not supposed to think about _yourself_. You're supposed to do something nice for somebody else. For your colleagues."

"Enforced consumerism. The true spirit of Lurlinism."

"It is, actually," said Glinda. "Well – not consumerism, but the giving of gifts." Expertly, she quoted: "_Lurline gave the Land of Oz the gift of her daughter, to rule as the Ozma, wisely and well_. My grandmother was a devout Lurlinist."

This was bending the truth somewhat; Glinda's grandmother had had a sentimental attachment to the figure of Lurline, which was common among the Upland women – Queen Lurline being the archetypal belle of the ball – but she hadn't been religious about it. Lurlinism was barely a faith anymore, and it hadn't been even in her grandmother's time. Lurlinemas itself had become a generalised winter festival, divorced from its worshipful origins in all but name.

"That's enlightening," said Elphaba. "But isn't Lurline supposed to have flown off forever and left the Ozma here? Child abandonment. Brought to you by the Mother of Enchanted Oz."

"It _is_ funny that we still celebrate Lurlinemas," said Glinda, still thinking about her grandmother, who she missed.

"Unionists don't," said Elphaba.

"The fanatical ones, no," she agreed. "But there has to be _something_, for most people, to break up the months between autumn and spring – and Lurlinemas was already there, I suppose…"

"Religion causes enough trouble as it is, without people picking up leftover bits and pieces from whatever their ancestors left lying around. Including their hang-ups and all manner of inflexible social prejudices."

Glinda cut in, with a smile. "But then we wouldn't have an excuse for the Lurlinemas party. That's when they give out all the Secret Lurline presents."

Elphaba paled.

"Lurlinemas party?" she said wretchedly.

"Don't tell me you didn't have one of _those_ at the _Herald_."

"No. We didn't have any decorations. We didn't celebrate anything, actual or mythological. It was drab and depressing. It was a dreamland compared with this. I want to go back."

Indulgence stole up on Glinda, out of nowhere. "The intrepid reporter, on the run from a box lottery…"

Elphaba bristled. "I am not."

"Yes you are."

"Cease and desist."

All morning, Glinda pretended not to notice Elphaba pretending that she wasn't dreading the arrival of the Secret Lurline box in their corner of the newsroom.

The axe fell just before noon.

The executioner: Pfannee.

"Ring, ring! Secret Lurline," she carolled, sashaying over with the box under her arm. "Who wants to go first?"

"I will," said Glinda.

"Here you go." Pfannee held out the box so that Glinda could take an envelope. "Good luck!"

Excitedly Glinda tore open the seal and checked the name. _Fiyero Tigulaar_. An acceptable result. Fiyero dressed well. She could get him a tie pin.

"You look pleased with yourself," said Pfannee. "Who did you get?"

"Pfannee, you know the rules."

Pfannee sighed theatrically and turned to Elphaba's desk, dumping the box down. "Your turn, aspartame."

Elphaba raised an eyebrow, amused. "That's sweet of you."

"Why do you have to be so _bizarre?"_

"Let me help you out," said Elphaba. "Did you perhaps mean to say _asparagus_?"

"That's what you put in your coffee instead of sugar, stupid." Pfannee caught Glinda's eye and shook her head, as if to say: _honestly_.

"You single-handedly reinforce the unfair stereotype that afflicts weather presenters everywhere," said Elphaba. "Dazzling. But I'm not participating in this folly, so you can take that contraption off my desk." She edged her swivel chair away from the box.

"It's mandatory. You have to do it." Pfannee turned to Glinda. "What's wrong with her? It's a cardboard box, not a bomb."

Elphaba shot up so quickly that all Glinda saw was a blur of green and black.

"_Say that again!_"

"Get _away_ from me, you freak!" Pfannee shrank back. "Say _what _again?"

"A box," said Elphaba to herself, agitatedly pacing around in front of her desk. "A box, not a bomb – not_ a _bomb_._ The singular, not the plural…and considering where the cut was – but it needs clarification..."

She stopped pacing, grabbed her handbag, and tossed her coat over her arm. "I'm going out."

"But – " said Pfannee, clearly warring with herself over whether to retire to a safe distance or to get the last word in. "But – "

"_But, but, but._" Elphaba snapped. "Is there a rotor motor in here?"

"But you haven't picked your envelope!"

Elphaba snarled, seized an envelope out of the box, shoved it in her bag, spun on her heel and headed out of the newsroom, almost colliding with the Legal Correspondent.

"_Watch it, dummy."_

"She's off the map," said Pfannee, as they watched her go. "I feel bad for whoever ends up with _her_ as their Secret Lurline. I really do. And for whoever picks _her_ name out. What are you supposed to buy a basket case like that?"

"Apples," said Glinda, unthinkingly. "Mittens. Balloons."

"That's totally right. You could buy her any random old things, and it wouldn't matter. An appointment with a headologist – that's what _she_ needs."

_Those aren't random things,_ it occurred to Glinda._ Those are things that Elphaba is fond of.  
><em>

In the present context, she decided it would be prudent to keep that knowledge to herself.

"If she can't _be _sane, she can at least _act_ it," said Pfannee. "Don't you think?" She retrieved the box from Elphaba's desk. "I have to go. There's still a ton of envelopes in here."

Glinda put her Secret Lurline envelope away in her purse. _The singular, and not the plural_. It was basic grammar. She could see no other meaning. Nothing to go locomotive over.

As for the meaning of Elphaba – the sense of who Elphaba _was_ –that continued to escape her, and it continued to vex her, and it was cartographically complicated, but she couldn't let it go.

Off the map of the known, and into the territory of the undreamt-of.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Special guest star: Cleopatra, as the obscure Empress of the Delta. Alternative special guest star: Elizabeth Taylor, who played Cleopatra in the 1963 movie, and who also had a very pretty nose.  
><strong>


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